Inside the Red Sox’s Rollercoaster Ride with Roman Anthony: Genius or Gambit?

Javier started throwing sinkers during his rehab outings in the minors, and clearly got comfortable enough to throw it 12 times in his first game back in the big leagues. Starters relying on two different fastballs to keep hitters off balance has become trendy recently. It’s especially interesting to see a pitcher in Javier whose four-seamer is so highly regarded on its own also introduce a multi-fastball approach at this next stage of his career. And if the sinker can help him coax more ground balls — his chief shortcoming as a pitcher, even when he was having success — that would be a massive development for an arm that now projects as especially important for Houston with October approaching.

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