Boston – Talking to Tigers right-hander Matt Manning, you can understand the infatuation with his slider.
For one, it’s new. For another, it’s an elite pitch and for the most part, it’s been effective.
“That’s why it was hard for me (to limit the usage),” he said. “I was getting such good results with the slider right now. I came in with that player program, like that’s what people do. You have a good pitch, you throw it a lot more.
“Plus, it’s been a slider league. So, OK, if I’m going to adapt to the league, I’m going to throw more sliders. And now some teams are game planning for it, so I have to go back to the well.”
The Tampa Bay Rays flipped the script on him in his last start.
“I never had someone game plan to sit on a slider before,” he said. “It’s always been the other way around, about flipping fastballs.”
Manning, who got to the big leagues on the strength of his high-extension (7 feet, 2 inches) four-seam fastball, threw 39 sliders in 5.2 innings against the Rays. And they did a lot of damage against it, all told scoring six runs off him.
It forced him to do some soul searching prior to him taking the mound at Fenway Park Saturday.
“It’s still early in my career and I’m still trying to find out where my strengths are,” Manning said. “I just learned that slider last year. It’s a pitch that’s still new to me, so once you find a new toy, you want to rip it a bunch. It’s about finding a balance.
“Each game is going to be different. I’ve got to get better game to game making pitch adjustments, reading swings and not just trying to throw what I feel comfortable with.”
That’s some heady self-awareness there. We can forget sometimes that he’s still just 25 and Saturday was only his 41st big league start. He came into the game having thrown essentially one full big-league season (201 innings) scattered over three injury-broken seasons.
Which is why manager AJ Hinch pumped the brakes with both feet on the narrative that Manning was still searching for his identity as a pitcher.
“I don’t think he needs an identity at all,” Hinch said. “I think your identity is created by, are you a guy who gets out. I don’t think we care how he does it, what his velo is – there’s been a lot of debate around his stuff and what type of pitcher he’s going to be.
“That’s simply not necessary from my chair.”
What is necessary from Hinch’s chair is that Manning continue to progress toward being a consistent, reliable presence in the middle of the rotation.
“He needs to establish himself as a bona fide Major League starting pitcher and that means you’re getting outs,” Hinch said. “As his confidence has grown, so has his ability to do whatever he wants with a game plan. I don’t really want him to be fixated on being one or the other (power vs. finesse).
“He can establish himself as a guy who can get a lot of outs.”
We’ve seen that version of Manning. On July 8 against Toronto, he pitched 6.2 no-hit innings, the first leg of a combined no-hitter that day. He threw a perfect blend of three pitches – 34 fastballs, 30 sliders, 27 curveballs.
He only got five swinging strikes, but the off-balance Blue Jays hitters rarely squared a ball up and were caught looking 23 times.
His last three starts have been much different. More slider use, fewer outs. He’s been tagged for 17 earned runs in 16 innings with opponents hitting .320 off him.
“I’m just looking at it inning by inning,” Manning said. “The last three weeks I’ve had good innings and I’ve had two or three innings that have just gotten away from me. There have been a lot of good innings. I just have to do a better job of minimizing damage in the bad ones.”
Chances are, with the help of pitching coach Chris Fetter and his staff, Manning is going to find a way to clear this hurdle. It won’t be the last one he has to leap. You may have heard, this is a game of constant adjustment.
“What I fear with young pitching is we get too hot and too cold based on recent performance,” Hinch said. “I think he’s a perfect example. He’s had stretches coming right off the foot injury where it’s like, ‘There he is. This is the dominant starting pitcher we dreamed of for him.’
“Then he has a couple of bad games and we revert back to, ‘What type of pitcher is he.’”
The operative word, still with Manning, is patience. Even in his third big-league season, he remains an intriguing work in progress.
“We’re going to push him to utilize his stuff and mix his stuff better,” Hinch said. “We think his best version is being unpredictable. Which doesn’t make him a fastball guy and it doesn’t make him a slider guy. It makes him a pitcher.”
Twitter@cmccosky
Tigers at Red Sox, Fenway Park
12:05 p.m.
TV/Radio: Peacock, 97.1.
Scouting report:
LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (8-5, 2.75), Tigers: The last time he toed the rubber at Fenway Park, Oct. 18, 2021, Game 3 of the ALCS. He went struck out seven in six innings and helped the Red Sox beat the Astros. Over his career with the Red Sox, Rodriguez went 28-18 with a 4.30 ERA at Fenway.
RHP Kutter Crawford (5-6, 3.80), Red Sox: He’s coming off a bumpy start against the Royals (three runs, seven hits, six strikeouts in three innings). His best weapon is a high-spin (nearly 2,500 rpm) four-seam fastball that plays above the 94-mph average velocity. He’s holding hitters to a .173 average with it. He also mixes cutters, curves, splits (to lefties) and the occasional sweeper and slider.
— Chris McCosky