Game 7 Open Thread
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“The Wow Series” seems about right. Hope Game 7 will be good.
I assume some interested parties have seen this, but Tom Veducci’s article about how the postseason baseballs make it harder to throw the slider is kind of amazing:
Pitchers and coaches from both the Dodgers and Astros complained Saturday night about the World Series baseballs—and this time the controversy is not just about liveliness. They say there is a new problem: the baseballs used in the World Series are slicker than the ones used in the regular season because of a difference in the grain of the leather. The slicker World Series balls particularly make it hard to throw a good slider, they claim.
“We had a well-pitched game tonight from both sides,” Astros pitching coach Brent Strom said after Los Angeles won Game 4, 6-2. “I’m not taking anything away from the players. I just want to know why? Why in the world would the baseballs in the World Series be different? Because you can see the difference. You can feel it. I don’t understand it at all.”
[…]
Batters had hit just .109 against Darvish’s slider since he joined the Dodgers. It is considered one of the best sliders in the game. But the metrics on the pitch showed it was noticeably worse in Game 3 than it had been during the regular season, such as a horizontal break of 8.42 inches, down from 9.12 during the season.
In Game 4, Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen gave up a home run on a slider to Alex Bregman. It was the first time all year Jansen gave up a home run on a slider, covering 96 sliders.
No pitcher is having a worse time with his slider lately than Houston closer Ken Giles. During the regular season, Giles threw his slider 47 percent of the time and held hitters to a .133 batting average with it. But the pitch has been so unreliable in the postseason that Giles threw only two sliders among his eight pitches in Game 4 – both of them balls. Entering a 1-1 game to start the ninth inning, Giles faced three batters and retired none of them. He was charged with three runs and the loss.
With Darvish starting for the Dodgers and Hinch apparently unwilling to use his regular season closer, this certainly remains relevant tonight.