Savvy baseball fans know the difference between a cutter and a slider, but what differentiates the two pitches is a mystery to many. Roger McDowell and Randy St. Claire understand the nuances of both. Former big-league relievers, they now serve as pitching coaches for the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins, respectively.

McDowell and St. Claire discussed the ins and outs of the cutter — and its hybrid cousin, the slider — in separate interviews last month.

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THE CUTTER

St. Claire: “For me, a cutter is a fastball that’s moving. It runs in on that left-handed hitter’s hands. There is velocity to it, and there is no spin to the ball that you can pick up. A slider has spin and usually a tight dot to it. It’s usually when you throw a poor slider that it gets hit. On a cutter, the hitter does not pick up the spin on the ball. At the last, just before contact, the ball is sliding. For a left-hander it’s sliding to the right, and for a right-hander it’s sliding to the left. It’s very short break, too. A cutter is a contact pitch that makes them mis-hit the ball.”

McDowell: “Basically, you just take a four-seam fastball and offset it. It’s a very small offset from your four-seam fastball. You make a very slight turn — I guess it would be horizontal. You basically turn the seams. On a four-seam fastball, you’re gripping across the seams, and a cutter would be a slight angle off the four seams. You get a natural movement from that without having to do anything at the end, like on a curveball or a slider, where there’s a turn in your wrist. There’s more of a turn in the wrist on a curveball than a slider, but you can get away from that, just by off-setting a fastball, and hopefully it will cut.”

ACCIDENTAL CUTTERS

St. Claire: “The more you start manipulating the ball to get it to cut, the more velocity you lose on the ball. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Hudson has had a long and successful career. The 36-year-old right-hander owns a 187-100 recrod and a 3.41 ERA in 389 big-league appearances. Now in his eighth season with the Atlanta Braves — after six years in Oakland — he has accumulated 50.5 WAR. Primarily a sinkerball pitcher, Hudson has been a consistent front-line starter despite a pedestrian 6.11 K/9.

Hudson talked about his repertoire, and how it has evolved over the years, when the Braves visited Boston earlier this month.

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Tim Hudson: “When I first signed, I was sinker, slider, split — mostly sinker, split. I didn’t really throw much of a breaking ball; it was kind of a show-me type of pitch. That was pretty much all I had up until I got to Triple-A. Then I started working more on a changeup and a little bit of a bigger breaking ball.

“When I got to the big leagues, I was still mostly sinker-split, with an occasional slider. After about a year or so, I started relying more on a bigger breaking ball that I could throw more often when I was behind in counts. I also started throwing an occasional changeup, which was a different look than my split.

“My breaking ball went from being more of a cutter to more of a slider — just a bigger break. I needed something with a little more depth, something with a little more swing-and-miss potential. I needed something that would move away from a right-handed hitter a little more. The [pitch] I had been throwing had a smaller break, because it didn’t have slider rotation.

“A cutter is just an offset fastball that looks like a fastball and spins like a fastball, but at the very end cuts like a small slider. Read the rest of this entry »

For the Baltimore Orioles to stay in contention in the American League East, they probably need to get better pitching performances out of Jake Arrieta and Brian Matusz. Each has been inconsistent, as evidenced by their combined 17 losses and ERAs over 5.00. They’ll also need Wei-Yin Chen to keep up his good work. The rookie southpaw has been a pleasant surprise with his 7-3 record and 3.38 ERA.

Rick Adair, the Orioles pitching coach, gave scouting reports on the threesome when the team visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

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Read the rest of this entry »

On October 20, 2004, Derek Lowe had what might be the greatest pitching performance in Boston Red Sox history. It’s certainly the most underappreciated. Facing the New York Yankees in a classic Game 7, Lowe allowed one run and one hit in six innings. And he did it on just two days of rest.

The Red Sox won the game 10-3 and completed a stunning comeback from a three-games-to-none deficit against their hated rivals. They went on to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series and earned the franchise’s first title in 86 years.

Lowe talked about his historic outing when his current team, the Cleveland Indians, visited Fenway Park earlier this season.

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David Laurila: Your performance in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS is arguably the greatest in Red Sox history. Do you agree with that?

Lowe: “I don’t know. There have been a lot of games in the franchise’s history. Maybe the magnitude makes it that big. It was a perfect storm. I had competitive stuff that day and we scored a lot of runs. I had just pitched against them 48 hours earlier, so I had a fresh thought of what I wanted to do.

Our game plan was to throw a lot of breaking balls. We threw a lot of them and I was fortunate enough to have good command of my off-speed stuff that day. We figured they’d be ultra-aggressive, because it was kind of how the series had gone. They had been up 3-0 and we had clawed our way back to Game 7 in Yankee Stadium. We felt they’d be over-aggressive and maybe force the issue. Our game plan was something we were going to live and die by.”

DL: How good was your stuff that day?

Lowe: “Oh, God. I’ve had better. Read the rest of this entry »

As the team’s hitting coach, Rick Eckstein arguably has the most important job on the Washington Nationals staff. The Nats are in first place in the National League East largely because of their pitching, and they probably need to score more runs to stay there. Only three teams have crossed the plate fewer time than Eckstein’s charges. It isn’t for lack of effort or direction. The 39-year-old Eckstein is well-respected and known as a hard worker, but injuries and a lack of proven veterans are large obstacles to overcome.

Eckstein shared his thoughts on hitting, and several of his hitters, when the Nationals visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rocco Baldelli knows what it’s like to be a promising young hitter. Drafted sixth overall out of a Rhode Island high school, in 2000 by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, he was viewed as a potential superstar. He reached the big leagues at the age of 21, and despite three solid campaigns was still a work-in-progress when his career was derailed by injuries and illness.

He is now entrusted with helping other young players reach their potential. Still just 30 years old, he is working for the Rays as a special assistant to baseball operations. Baldelli shared his thoughts on the art of hitting — or is it a science? — at the MIT-Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, earlier this year.

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Rocco Baldelli: “As a hitter — a former hitter — I’ve always been enamored of just watching guys and seeing who has success and who doesn’t. I’ve seen guys who look as though they should be able to hit and can’t. I’ve seen guys who struggle early in their careers and then figure out a way to become productive major-league offensive players.

“You look for separators, but it‘s not that simple. You start looking for commons traits in good hitters, and common traits in guys who struggle, and you think you’ve found them. Then you see some of the best hitters in baseball doing things you wouldn’t necessarily expect good hitters to do. To me, the amount of questions is endless. There are so many variables that go into the process of hitting at the highest level.

“Pitchers can reinvent themselves. For instance, say you have a big guy with a good arm and he can spin the ball a little bit. He can progress and change the type of player he is. But hitters and swings seem to be so ingrained. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler Clippard was the winning pitcher in last year’s All-Star game. That might come as a surprise to casual fans, because the Washington Nationals set-up-man-turned-closer isn’t exactly a household name. He is, however, one of the best relievers in the National League.

Originally a starter in the Yankees system, the 27-year-old Clippard has been quietly lethal since moving into the Nationals bullpen. Since the beginning of the 2009 season, he has allowed 168 hits in 268 innings, and his K/9 over that span has been 10.65.

Clippard talked about the secrets to his success — including his mesmerizing changeup — when the Nationals visited Fenway Park last weekend.

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Clippard on closer mentality and high-leverage usage: “I feel like anybody can do it. There is definitely a mentality there, but I think that a lot of it plays into just being a big-league pitcher. If you’re pitching in important roles out of the bullpen, whether it’s the seventh, eighth or ninth, a lot of it is similar.

“I’m a believer in [having your best reliever pitch in high-leverage situations] but it’s also a tough thing to really pinpoint. The game is always changing and you don’t know what’s going to happen in the next inning. It’s a lot of in-the-moment stuff. Your six, seven and eight hitters could put together better at bats than the two, three, four guys. You never know for sure how to go about it, so maybe it’s better to put guys in roles and let them feel comfortable. That might be the best way to approach it.”

On having been a starter: “In 2009, I was still developing physically, mentally, the whole thing. The starter role kind of got taken away from me that year. It was the year I finally started throwing a little bit harder and developed a cutter. I was still learning

“I feel that I could go back to starting. Read the rest of this entry »

J.J. Hardy receives a lot of accolades for his bat, and rightly so. He hit 30 home runs last season, which tied him with Troy Tulowitzi for the most among big-league shortstops. He also can flash the leather. According to The Fielding Bible, “J.J. Hardy could be the most underrated shortstop in baseball. He makes all the plays that he should and can make the exceptional play on occasion.”

Hardy discussed the ins and outs of playing shortstop when he and his Baltimore Orioles teammates visited Fenway Park last week.

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On The Fielding Bible saying that he gets to more balls to his right than he did when he played for Milwaukee: “I don’t have a reason as to why that might be. It’s not that I worked on it the last couple of years. Maybe I play a little bit farther to the right than I did before, although we don’t really position any differently here. We go over the same scouting reports and I feel that I play guys who are pull [hitters] in the same spots as before.”

On reading the ball off the bat: “I’ve always felt that I read the ball well and get good jumps, because even though the speed isn’t there, I get to a lot of balls. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez have a few notable things in common. The Washington Nationals mound duo have outstanding stuff and rely more on pitching to their strengths than on scouting reports. Each boasts an ERA under 3.00 and is one of the best pitchers in the National League.

They also have their differences. Zimmermann is a reserved right-hander with a four-pitch mix and a relatively low strikeout rate [6.52]. Gonzalez is a fun-loving southpaw with a three-pitch mix and a high strikeout rate [11.02]. The 26-year-old Zimmermann returned to the Nationals rotation after undergoing Tommy John surgery, the 27-year-old Gonzalez arrived via an off-season trade.

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Zimmermannn on his approach: “I look at scouting reports a little bit, but I don’t like to look at them too much. I watch some video, but I don’t get too caught up in what’s in the reports.

“I’m always out there seeing how the hitter’s swing is and making adjustments during the game. I’m seeing things like where his front foot is landing. If he’s late on the fastball, I’m going to throw it again. If he’s on something, I’m probably going to mix it up and throw something else.

“What I throw has a lot to do with how I feel that day — what I feel is going to be working. On any given day, it could be a different pitch that‘s my best pitch. I’m obviously going to come after guys with my fastball, but it could be my curveball or my slider that’s my better pitch that day.”

On his curveball and his slider: “I throw a pretty hard slider. It’s 86 to 88 or 89 [mph]. It’s kind of like a small baby cutter. Read the rest of this entry »

Quintin Berry is off to a fast start. The Detroit Tigers outfielder is hitting .290/.372/.406 in his first 18 games as a big leaguer. He is also stealing bases, which should come as no surprise. The 27-year-old former Phillies prospect was a prolific thief in the minors, swiping at least 40 bags in five of his six full professional seasons. Since donning a Tigers uniform, he has been perfect in all seven attempts.

Berry discussed the art of the stolen base on a recent visit to Fenway Park.

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Berry on stealing bases in the big leagues: “I often wondered whether my speed was going to get me to the big leagues, because it’s always been my best tool. Fortunately it did and I’ve been able to use it a lot since I’ve been here.

“I feel that stealing bases is the same anywhere. The only difference here is that the stakes are higher and the margin of error for mistakes is very small. You have to make sure that you’re being smart about the situation, but I feel good. I feel just as confident here as I did at the lower levels. I know that I can steal bases.”

On preparation: “There is definitely more [data] available here than in the minors. I’m able to see the times a lot better, so I’m getting more reads on pitchers. I’m able to see video on them before games, so I have an idea of what they’re working with. For me, stealing bases is like hitting. Read the rest of this entry »