What a pitcher. Let’s hope he’s through his doldrums.

It may be a cutter, but it is a distinctly different pitch than the others he throws. The spin direction is about 175 degrees and he doesn’t throw anything other pitches like that.

Try this: http://www.brooksbaseball.net/.....revDate=58 . That’s the data from his shutout. You can clearly see six 89 mph sliders in the middle of that chart. It’s not a choked fastball. The break is all wrong for that. You can’t throw a curveball that hard. He’s got a distinct fourth pitch now.

EDIT – Further, here: http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/.....8;c_id=det

The 11 strikeouts came on the following pitches:
1 – fastball at 96
2 – fastball at 97
3 – slider at 89
4 – curve at 84
5 – curve at 83
6 – curve at 83
7 – fastball at 97
8 – curve at 83
9 – fastball at 97
10 – slider at 91, and this is the clearest picture of the new pitch
11 – fastball at 99

Go to 0:50 in the video and watch the 10th strikeout. It’s clearly a pitch at 91 mph moving away from the right handed hitter. That’s a very hard slider, or a cutter. Hope this helps.

I think, AT MOST this is a cutter but I’m skeptical of that. I saw one he threw to Jeter in the 3rd inning on April 27th that Gameday listed as a slider at 83 MPH and 9 inches of break. The ones against Shoppach were both 83 with 11 inches of break and listed as curveballs. He threw one to Cano as well, but it was an 89 MPH “Slider” in the dirt (a.k.a. I’m thinking fastball), with 6 inches of break.

I think they’re just curveballs with varying degree of break, and I didn’t see the others that were 88-91 MPH aside from a couple that were up in the zone or in the dirt, that gameday listed as ‘sliders.’

Pitch f/x didn’t track a single pitch like this in his major league career until this season, though. I’ve certainly never seen him throw it in games until this season. You may be thinking of the harder curves that he throws at 83 mph or so that tend to flatten out and get lots of lateral break. But this is a completely distinct pitch, thrown much harder at 88-91 mph. I’m not sure where you got the idea that he’s been throwing this hard slider before the last couple of starts, but I’d be happy to be shown that I’m wrong here.

Eric was the first person that I saw mention it. I looked at his other games from this season and I don’t see where he threw it. In what other games has he thrown it?

he needs that 3rd pitch to maintain the success hes had imo

One thing I like about this pitch is that he hasn’t thrown one up in the zone yet. It’s pretty much only been worked at the bottom of the zone. If it’s just going to be a hanging slider, then there’s no point in adding it. But if he’s got a plan with it, then it’s fine. And it’s apparent that that plan is working it almost exclusively to the low glove side of the plate, in on lefties and away from righties. If that allows him to cover a part of the plate he couldn’t cover with his fastball, great.

That being said I still think it comes down to locating his pitches. If he does that like he has the last three games, as we have seen he is pretty much lights out.