The numbers show that Glen Perkins has been an effective pitcher since moving from the starting rotation and into the bullpen. The Minnesota Twins southpaw knows those numbers as well as anyone, and not just his won-lost record, his ERA and his WHIP. He’s also aware of his BABiP, his FIP and his WAR, as well as most anything that can found in his PITCHf/x data.

Prior to a recent game at Target Field, the 29-year-old talked about his move to the bullpen, his repertoire and his interest in stats.

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Perkins on his success pitching out of the bullpen: “A big reason has been more confidence, and the mental side of it came with the physical side. Going to the bullpen allowed me to get healthy. As a starter, I had just worn down.

“A positive was that pitching with inferior stuff taught me to be able to command the ball. It also taught me to set up hitters and recognize what they’re trying to do. There are nuances in the batter’s box that I can pick up on now that I never used to be able to. I needed to get any kind of advantage when I had bad stuff.

“My stuff got better when I went to the bullpen. I got healthy and started throwing harder. I actually kind of went back to my first year in the big leagues. In 2007, I was a reliever and was throwing a lot harder than I did in 2008 and 2009. Along with the increase in fastball velocity, I’ve become a lot more comfortable with my slider. I have a two-pitch mix that I’ve learned to work with. When you throw 95-96 [mph], hitters can’t stay on a fastball that quick, and then a slider.

“I got pounded pretty good in 2009, my last year as a starter in the big leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Giancarlo Stanton can make hitting look easy. At just 22 years old, the Miami Marlins slugging outfielder combines prodigious power with an ability to hit for a solid average. Last season he belted 34 home runs, and this year he boasts a .283/.365/.555 slash line and has 19 long balls on his ledger. His current-season numbers would be even better were it not for a 12-for-64 stretch from June 1 through June 20.

Currently day-to-day with a balky knee, Stanton will represent the Marlins in next week’s All-Star Game and — health permitting — participate in the Home Run Derby. He discussed his hitting approach during a mid-June visit to Fenway Park.

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Stanton on hitting: “The first thing you need is a good pitch to hit. You can feel as good as ever, but if you don’t swing at strikes, you’re not going to be successful. There are times that hitting is very interesting. It’s also a long process. You can feel great and swing at strikes and still make outs, so it’s about consistency. You have to make sure you’re doing the right things and not changing just because you’re not successful for a short time.

“For me, it’s about staying inside the ball and not trying to hurry up on a pitch inside. That’s one of the things when you’re not hitting well, you see the ball inside and think, ‘Boom! I have to get to it real quick.’ It’s more the opposite. You want to be smooth and soft with your body to get to that ball. Read the rest of this entry »

Logan Morrison isn’t capable of producing the same type of offensive fireworks as Giancarlo Stanton. The 24-year-old “LoMo” doesn’t have his teammate’s light-tower power. But he can go yard. His left-handed stroke produced 23 long balls last year and his slugging percentage was a solid .468. Swinging for the fences simply isn’t his modus operandi.

Morrison doesn’t fashion himself a home-run hitter. The Miami Marlins first baseman goes up to the plate with an opposite-field line-drive approach that helped him post strong OBP numbers in the minor leagues and in his 2010 rookie season. Since then, his results have been mixed.

Two-plus seasons into his Marlins career, Morrison is seemingly caught in between. Hitting in the middle of Ozzie Guillen’s order, neither his on-base nor his slugging numbers are up to snuff. With the All-Star break looming, he has 10 home runs and a .242/.317/.433 slash line.

Morrison is capable of much more, but first he has to find himself. When he does, will he be a middle-of-the-order run producer? Or will he be more of a batting average-OBP guy? Could he be both?

Morrison talked about his approach when the Marlins visited Fenway Park in June.

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Logan Morrison on hitting: “I’ve pretty much tried to keep the same approach my whole life. Growing up, my dad was big into the art of hitting. It was Charlie Lau, then Tony Gwynn and reading his book. That turned into me going to Kevin Seitzer and getting lessons from him. He was always up the middle and the other way.

“I’ve also worked on learning how to pull the ball and when to pull the ball. That’s something I’ve tried to develop, but right now I’m trying to get back to up-the-middle and the other way. My approach has always been up-the-middle and the other way, but whether it’s timing — my contact point — I’m pulling a lot of balls this year. That’s OK with me as long as I’m getting hits, but I’m not getting enough hits.

“I was pulling the ball last year too, but not to the extreme that I am now. Why? It could be the pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »