Inside the Rise of MacKenzie Gore and the Mysterious Potential of Gunnar Hoglund: What You Need to Know Now
He has also turned to the changeup more often earlier in the count, using it 81.5% of the time early in counts to righties. All of which is to say that Sears’ shift to pitch backwards against righties has been successful. He can get ahead with his sweeper or change, and then go to the tighter slider or four-seam to try and steal strikes. It’s still not an approach that seems to lead to lots of strikeout upside, but it has worked in limiting hard contact.
He’s doing similar things against lefties, throwing his sweeper 65% of the time overall, using it early in the count 60% of the time, and registering a 59% zone rate on it against lefties. He’s able to throw it in the strike zone against lefties and then shift it farther outside to have it break off the plate in two-strike counts. When he doesn’t do that, he tries to spot a four-seam fastball away from lefties, using it 24% of the time to them and throwing it on the outside part of the plate 80% of the time.
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