With Ryan Pressly, Astros can now turn the Bullpen into a positive one

Earlier this season, Indian pitcher Trevor Bauer, as gifted in analytics as provocatively, responded to a message on Twitter wondering if the Astros were trading baseball by writing, "If only there was a quick way to get the ball rolling. increase the rotation speed. For example, if you could, you could trade a player knowing that you could increase his speed by a few hundred turns in one night. … Imagine the flights you could get on the trade market! If only that existed … "

On Saturday night, referee Joe West inspected the glove of the Astros receiver, Martin Maldonado, between the sleeves, to look for a foreign substance such as pine tar, which could help induce more rotation.

Brent Strom, coach of the Astros pitchers, said the team had done nothing to increase the speed of rotation, saying he had ideas, like having launchers who throw a weighted golf ball that would help keep the hand behind the ball, but did not put them into practice.

"There is no quick fix," he said. "We just have very sharp people working for Jeff."

According to Strom, with Pressly, the Astros "slightly modified their use of the field, but we did nothing to improve anything."

Strom added, "He already had it. That's what we do with everyone. "

In fact, the rotational speed of Pressly is almost static. According to Statcast data, his curved balloon was at 3,204 rotations per minute before trading, second best in baseball among those who had pitched at least 100 curved balls. Since trading, it has the best turnover rate at 3,260 rpm. His fast four-seamed ball, which averaged 2,579 revolutions per minute. before the trade, plunged to 2,531 since trading.

But Pressly launches his curved ball more often, increasing his use from 37 to 37%, and passing his use of four seams to 44 out of 44. He launches his slider almost at the same frequency (from 28% to 27). eliminated its occasional use of a double seam, sinking fastball. In the first game against Boston, Pressly leaned even more heavily on his ball, especially at the start of the count. Of the 18 shots he pitched to four batters, 12 were turns and three sliders; all sliders and two of the curves were toggled and missed.

Pressly said that he was a more confident pitcher now that he had an elite defense behind him and that he could absorb the details – video, charts and raw data – that go into the plans of the game of Astros throwers.