A BREAK WITH THE PAST
Catching up to a major league trend, Pirates pitchers have increased their use of breaking balls this season.
Joe Musgrove was in the Houston Astros bullpen in the 2017 American League Championship Series. He watched another Astros right-hander, Lance McCullers Jr., throw curveball after curveball to the New York Yankees. Over and over in the final two innings, McCullers got outs with the curveball, eventually throwing 24 in a row.
“We knew he was going to throw his curveball a lot,” Musgrove said, “but not that much.”
The Astros are one of several teams that succeeded in recent years with a higher percentage of breaking-ball usage. The Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays have followed. The Pirates, less than a decade removed from an affinity with the sinker and inducing ground balls, are slowly joining the breaking-ball party.
This year, Pirates pitchers are throwing breaking balls 29.4 percent of the time, which ranks 13th in Major League Baseball. The Los Angeles Angels lead the majors at 37.6 percent, and the Chicago Cubs rank last at 20.1 percent. In 2016, the Pirates threw 21.5 percent breaking balls, more than only two teams in baseball.
Evidence of the Pirates adoption of more breaking pitches also lies in their acquisitions. Last summer they traded for Chris Archer, who has one of the best sliders in the game. This offseason, when looking for a fifth starter, they signed Jordan Lyles, who had success last year in Milwaukee’s bullpen throwing four-seam fastballs up in the strike zone paired with curveballs. Though these might be a shift for the Pirates, the principles are hardly new; Statcast data has just allowed the average fan to better understand pitch usage.
“Throwing a curveball off a fastball? C’mon, man,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “[Bert] Blyleven did it and he’s in the Hall of Fame.”
Midway through the 2017 season, the Pirates ranked first in fastball usage at 63.3 percent. Opposing teams hit .283 against those fastballs, which tied for 23rd. They ranked 26th in baseball in breaking-ball usage that year, at 23.2 percent.
Throwing more breaking balls by itself, however, does not guarantee success. Pitchers have to command them. And to make them more effective, they have to command the fastball.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” pitching coach Ray Searage said. “I like throwing fastballs, but in order to enhance your breaking ball you have to have fastball command. Pitching in is key, not only for strikes but in off the plate. You take that little bit of aggressiveness away from [the hitter], and the breaking ball becomes even that much better.”
And as Nick Kingham put it, “A bad breaking ball is easier to hit than a bad fastball.”
Logic dictates that locating a pitch that does not travel straight is harder than locating one that does, but major league pitchers have been throwing breaking balls for a decade or more, fine-tuning
their grip and release point and finger pressure to give them a repeatable pitch. Some pitchers pick an aim point.
“For me, I’m picking a spot and ripping it off that,” Trevor Williams said. “If I’m trying to get it to go glove side just beyond
the plate, I’m looking at [Francisco Cervelli’s] third shin guard buckle.”
Others look at where they want the pitch to end up.
In addition to the location of the pitch, its path to the plate impacts its effectiveness.
“The idea is to have a fastball line out of the hand,” Musgrove said. “… We talk about it with [Keone Kela] all the time. His fastball’s got such good plane downhill that he doesn’t really have to throw his curveball in the zone. He can throw his curveball off of that fastball line and let his curveball bounce on the plate.” Timing matters, too. “The best breaking ball, the most effective one, is one you can throw for a strike and then you can manipulate it, basically move it around,” Kingham said. “You have to establish it first, in the zone, and that’s the biggest way to get a swing on it later on in the game.” He paused.
“How to do that? Practice. I don’t know, man. I still struggle with it. It doesn’t go where I want it to all the time. I threw one at Elvis Andrus’ neck the other day and I was trying to bounce it.”
Apocryphal thoughts about the increased injury risk of throwing more breaking pitches still persist, to some extent. Recent studies of youth pitchers have not found a connection between curveball usage and injury, though some surgeons believe it exists. Throwing with poor mechanics and throwing while fatigued continue to cause more injuries than anything, regardless of the type of pitch.
“Pitching’s wear and tear on the arm,” he said. “We’re not supposed to throw overhand. That’s really it. We’re big boys. We’re strong enough.”