Chris Sale in Crisis: Rookie Andrew Abbott's Emergence Sparks Pitching Revolution
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However, we have also seen some minor changes in his slider as well. The pitch is about 1 mph harder with 1.5 inches more vertical drop and 1.5 inches more horizontal break this season. It’s another pitch he’s using in the zone far less often than he did last year. This year, his slider has a 34% zone after posting a 51% zone last year. While that may not seem good, he’s throwing the pitch exclusively to lefties and using it low in the zone 89% of the time, up from 65% last year, which means he’s starting it near the bottom of the zone and letting it drop out of the strike zone. It may not end up in the strike zone, but the SwStr% on the slider jumped from 3.5% to 13.6% this year, so the new approach change on it has really helped his strikeouts.
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