Sonny slams Yankees
TAMPA — Sonny Gray blamed the Yankees coaches and their slider obsession for his terrible 2018 season, because they forced him to throw too many of them.
“They love sliders,” Gray told The Athletic Tuesday. “Sliders are a great pitch. The numbers say slider is a good pitch, but you might not realize how many s----counts you’re getting in while throwing all those sliders. They wanted me to be (Masahiro) Tanaka and I’m way different from him.”
That is not exactly how Aaron Boone remembered it.
“We tried as best we could to try to get him to be successful, so I think we all kind of shared in the frustration at times. I know he was frustrated, we were but, we just tried to get him to be the best he could be and as successful as he could be,” the Yankees manager said after a 5-1 win over the Braves at George M. Steinbrenner Field. “I don’t know if I’d characterized it… I mean he throws a slider.”
Gray was 9-9 with a 5.26 ERA in 23 starts last season, before the Yankees acquired J.A. Happ and Lance Lynn at the trade deadline, sending him to the bullpen. He had a dreadful home-and-road splits with a 3.17 ERA on the road and 6.98 at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees traded Gray to the Reds this winter, in what amounted to a threeway trade. The 29-year old, however, has not closed the door on his nearly two seasons in pinstripes.
Gray was unhappy about being left off the Yankees postseason roster after making seven relief appearances with a 2.70 ERA.
“In my very last outing against the Red Sox, secondto-last game of the season in New York, I threw two innings out of the pen, all I did was throw cutters,” Gray said. “I said, ‘F--- ’em, all I’m going to do is throw cutters today.’ I just threw 94-mph cutters. … [Pitched well, and] I thought maybe I’ll make the postseason roster here … but I didn’t.”
Gray finished the season 11-9, with a 4.90 ERA, 1.49 WHIP and 123 strikeouts in 130.1 innings pitched.
And he blamed the slider on his fate.
“I can’t command my slider that well. I want to throw my slider in the dirt with two strikes, and that’s about it. I don’t have that type of slider, like Tanaka’s slider. His slider, the catcher will catch it, and the batter will swing and miss. If I get a swing and miss, the catcher is blocking it in the dirt,” Gray said. “When I try to throw sliders for a strike, I get around it and it’s just a s----- spinning pitch.”