Welcome to game of the tweak
Musgrove refines pitches, footwork while trying to win 5th rotation spot
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — In a spring when the Astros have positions taken by veterans and young stars, a bullpen of the same pitchers who led the majors last year in WAR, and a starting rotation nearly set, the No. 5 starter has been the most prominent opening.
Joe Musgrove and Mike Fiers are the top contenders, and neither righty has taken a lead.
Fiers made a start but missed time because of hamstring soreness. He and Collin McHugh, who is coming back from dead arm, are scheduled to pitch in minor league games on Friday.
On Wednesday, Musgrove called their competition a “stalemate” after he pitched four innings against the Washington Nationals. He was not pleased with his command, which usually is a clear strength for him. He fell behind in counts often and allowed three hits, two earned runs and two walks in a game the Astros won 8-2.
Two weeks out from the end of spring training, manager A.J. Hinch has not suggested the No. 5 spot favors anyone. He considered Musgrove’s self-assessment understandable but overblown.
“He made some close pitches that didn’t go his way, which might have flipped his belief in him-
self a little bit,” Hinch said. “He’s been very impressive this spring. He hasn’t had a ton of marks against him. Being the perfectionist and prepared guy that he is, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s not thrilled with a few mistakes.”
With a runner on first in the second inning, Musgrove threw a breaking pitch to the edge of the zone that was called a ball, saving Michael Taylor from striking out looking. Taylor then lined a fastball the other way into the rightcenter gap to drive in a run on a triple. The next batter singled, and Taylor trotted home.
“It’s good for me run into something like that because I know I’m going to go though something like that plenty of times throughout the season,” Musgrove said. “This is a good learning point for me to find out how to work out of that.”
Tweaking and tinkering have gotten Musgrove to this point, where he is about to begin his first full season in the majors. Despite being lanky and 6-5, Musgrove, 24, does not unleash the elite velocity of a Ken Giles or movement of a Lance McCullers that allows more room for error.
“He’s got plus stuff, not elite stuff,” Hinch said.
To set up his array of subtler cutting and diving pitches requires precision with his fastball and slider first.
“My ability to use those two pitches to get ahead of guys is what I feed off,” Musgrove said. “The types of swings you see, the aggressiveness of the hitter, it all changes when they’re in the driver’s seat as opposed to me.”
Instead of blowing away or buckling hitters, Musgrove fills a toy chest of pitches to play with. At Class A Tri-City, he picked up a rare one-seam fastball that he refined into a sinker. He liked to use it to induce weak contact.
That reliable option turned out to be limited in the majors. He used to throw it with his right foot flush to the third-base side of the rubber. This angle made it easy for him to jam righties, but its right-to-left sink landed the ball in a sweet spot for lefties.
“I got hurt a lot on it last year when I tried to use it, so I went away from it,” he said.
Musgrove sophisticated the sinker this spring. For righties, he still has his foot on the third-base side of the rubber. Conversely, for lefties he changes to standing on the first-base side so his body has a more direct line toward the inside part of the batter’s zone and his long arm does not have to cross over so much.
He is slick about it so as to not tip the pitch. He starts by standing on the rubber. Then during the windup, he pivots his right foot to whichever side makes sense.
“That’s something that’s so small they won’t really see from the plate,” he said.
He faced an ideal test subject last week against the New York Mets: Tim Tebow. If pros would not see Musgrove’s pivot, the lefthanded former football player with uninspiring offensive statistics certainly would not pick that up. On the second pitch, Tebow chopped a sinker to first.
Musgrove enjoyed a similar discovery for addressing lefties last September. In just days, he developed an effective cut fastball to crowd them.
“What he’s finding is he’s going to use his pitches to the right hitters,” Hinch said. “Sometimes (the catchers) will call things that he’s not used to doing but is very capable of doing.”
This was displayed Wednesday in a grudge match with Taylor. Righthanded batters clobbered Musgrove’s curveball last season, so he shied away from it. He credited catcher Brian McCann for persuading him to not put “limits on myself.” He finished his outing by freezing Taylor on a curve that snuck inside for a third strike.
“He every bit looks the part of a major league starter,” Hinch said earlier in the week. “He’s got a great compete button that we noticed right away. His poise is good. His makeup is excellent. There’s a lot to like about him short term and long term.”