Sarris: Zack Greinke on pitching inside
From SABR member Eno Sarris at FanGraphs on October 2, 2015, with mention of SABR member Alan Nathan:
After we finished talking about his changeup and what he learned from Felix Hernandez, after we finished talking about command for the Hardball Times Annual, after we talked a little about his slider and his sinker, after we talked about a few hitters, even after I’d said goodbye and shook his hand, Zack Greinke hovered. He wasn’t done. He had noticed something about pitching inside and wondered if the numbers agreed.
It’s probably best to let you into his mind, and then try to unpack the parts.
“I noticed that when you throw away to people, they hit the ball hard,” the Dodgers’ pitcher said, “But they get out a lot more often, too. If you come in to them, they don’t hit the ball hard as often, but somehow they find a way to get hits more often. They’re getting hits more often inside even though their better swings are away and they’re hitting the ball hard more often away. I think they hit a lot of harder fly balls but most guys don’t have enough power to hit it over the opposite field defender’s head. A 300-foot hit is an out most of the time. Inside ground balls, there are so many more places you can hit that ball. Some guys can inside out it, some can hit it up the middle, some guys can roll over it and go down the third base line. You can hit it anywhere. But the outside pitch?”
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/zack-greinke-on-pitching-inside/
Originally published: October 5, 2015. Last Updated: October 5, 2015.