Scott Feldman on Scuffed Balls, Lopsided Balls, and Pitching Up

Scott Feldman knows a lot about pitching — the 31-year-old Houston Astros righthander just completed his tenth big-league season – which means he knows a lot about baseballs. When he gets a new one on the mound, Feldman immediately recognizes its specific shape and texture. Not every baseball feels exactly the same.

Feldman is likewise familiar with the fine line between success and failure. He’s never been a power pitcher, which means he needs to constantly look for an edge, be it physical or mental. He found several in the second half of the 2014 season, logging a 3.16 ERA over 13 starts.

Feldman addressed nuances of the horsehide sphere – and gave the lowdown on pitching high to Mike Trout – during a late-August visit to Fenway Park.

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Feldman on scuffed balls: “In my opinion, not as many pitchers know how to use a scuffed ball as you might think. When I was a rookie, there were some older guys in the bullpen and I’m sure they all knew how to scuff the ball – how to use it properly – but now it’s probably kind of a lost art. I could get better at it if I hung out with Doug Brocail for a couple hours, but for the most part I get the basic gist.

“I don’t know if I’m uncommon in this, but I actually don’t like having a scuffed ball. If I’m going to throw a certain pitch, it might mess up the way I want it to move. It could help one pitch – maybe my two-seamer – but it could hurt another pitch.

“My four-seamer kind of cuts and my two-seamer kind of runs, and sometimes it’s hard to get them to consistently do what I want. If I’m in a funk, or I’ve kind of been struggling with getting the ball to go in to a righty or away from a lefty… earlier in the season I was kind of struggling getting my cutter to turn left. So, I don’t know. Maybe scuffing would help.”

On lopsided and powdery balls: “Sometimes after a ball has been hit — especially if it’s been hit hard – you get the ball back and it’s lopsided. It’s not even a round ball anymore. It’s disfigured. That can happen, I promise you. At times it was just a pop-up or a ground ball, and you’ll get the ball back and it’s not round anymore. That’s one reason I’ll throw a ball out. I think it’s a mental thing. The ball is flat on one part and I’m not as familiar throwing a ball like that, so just for peace of mind I”ll throw it out and get a round one.

“One thing I’ve noticed about the baseballs is they’re way more powdery now than they used to be. I don’t know if you’ve talked to any other pitchers about baseballs, but in every stadium, when you get the balls, they feel different, like they’ve been rubbed up differently. A lot of times – when it’s cold outside, especially – every time you get the ball back you have to really rub it up. And if you don’t have any sweat, or anything else to rub it up, you can’t really feel the ball. I think that’s part of the reason why some games maybe take a little longer. If the balls you get back are so powdery – they’ve got like a powdery substance… I mean, I don’t want to throw a ball unless I’ve got some feel on it.”

On ballpark factors beyond the playing field: “I have a couple stadiums where I don’t really pitch too well, and I think it’s more of a mental thing. There is stuff there that is different from any other stadium, like Oakland and Boston. In Oakland, there’s nowhere to loosen up. You kind of get into a routine, like this is where I warm up, and in Oakland, in that little dugout, you can’t really go anywhere to clear your mind and just kind of chill. In other stadiums you can go down in the tunnel and blow off some steam, or go somewhere to sit down and relax. That’s more of a mental thing, obviously, but there are different aspects that come into play in certain parks.”

On listening to pitching coach Brent Strom and the lowdown on Mike Trout: “[Strom] has got a totally different way of thinking about pitching than I’ve ever come across. I like learning stuff about pitching, so I talk to him all the time. You play in different places and most pitching coaches are pretty much on the same page, like ‘throw the ball down,’ ‘control your off-speed pitches’ and ‘repeat your mechanics.’ He’s more like, ‘throw the ball, don’t try to pitch, just throw the ball’ – and he likes throwing the ball up in the zone. It’s kind of…. look how much that’s helped Collin McHugh, for example. I’ve tried to incorporate stuff like that into my game.

“I think you’re starting to see, like Mike Trout for example, or George Springer with us — these young guys are coming up and from the time they’re little, they know pitchers have been taught to throw the ball down. As a result, they’ve made that their strength. You know, they’re really good low-ball hitters. There are a lot of guys like that now. Mike Trout hits home runs on pitches that would maybe bounce in the dirt. He’s just so good at hitting low pitches, probably because he’s like ‘that’s where pitchers are going to try to throw their strikes, so I might as well be good at hitting it.’ I don’t know if that’s why, but it’s sure what it seems like.”