Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
Baseball sometimes defies logic. Statistics and trends are the predictors for what a baseball player will do now, and Joe Ross broke the computer modeling. He put together back-to-back zero run games in Arizona where the ball was flying and in San Francisco where the ball was dying, and now this new version of “Joe Cool” wants to continue to defy logic and prove that those who gave up on him were wrong. While the analytics people are converting sinkerballers to four-seamers, Ross has bucked that trend in his previous two starts while mixing up his pitch mix between his sinker, two-seam swingback, four-seamer, hard slider, soft breaker (curve/slurve), and a changeup. That is six distinct looks he is now throwing, and it is a total role reversal of what he was doing before where his fastballs were getting hit like a nightmare scene from a Home Run Derby. Continue reading
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