Houck zeros in on battle between hitters, pitchers
NEW YORK — Tanner Houck didn’t know what it was like to pitch up in the zone until he reached the minor leagues. Through his amateur days, Houck only pitched down and “eastwest” — to the left and right side of the plate. But hitters’ swing planes began to change. Players were getting paid to slug. Shifts were becoming more prevalent, and anything on the ground seemed to be an out. The easiest way for a hitter to reach base was to hit it over the shift.
So a pitcher expanding up with the four-seam fastball and down with the breaking stuff became a new niche. Houck pitches from a low three-quarters arm slot, which is better suited for pitchers who live east, west, and down in the zone. He had a wipeout slider. So, pitching up was an adjustment he had to make.
But now, you’re starting to see pitchers attack hitters in the lower quadrants again.
“The game will dictate how it wants to be played,” Houck said before Saturday’s game. “And I’m excited to see where people go with kind of going east and west and pitching down in the zone.”
Teams are putting more of an emphasis on putting the ball in play, eliminating some strikeouts, and running a bit more on the bases. That means shorter swings accompanied by more two-strike approaches.
It’s a shift, and it will likely change to something else before too long.
Manager Alex Cora believes that the change in how pitches attack hitters also has to do with the lack of sticky stuff following Major League Baseball’s crackdown last season.
“I don’t think the guys are able to spin the ball like they did before,” Cora said. “And with that, they made adjustments throughout the season. Because if your fastball is not playing up, they’re gonna hit it out of the ballpark.”
Going to Garrett: Cora had no problem sending Garrett Whitlock out for a third inning of work in Friday’s season opener. Whitlock cruised through 2 innings before DJ LeMahieu tagged a game-tying homer in the bottom of the eighth of an eventual 6-5 loss.
The plan coming into this early part of the season was for Whitlock to piggyback Rich Hill, but Cora saw a window for the Red Sox to win and adjusted accordingly.
“I mean, it got to a point where he was so efficient,” Cora said. “The plan was for him to go short [Friday] and pitch on Tuesday. But then you see what’s going on and you’re like, ‘Well, why not?’ You know, we can pitch him on Wednesday.”