Pitch Sequencing Quotes

The good rising fastball is the best pitch in baseball.

I use fast curves, pitched overhand and sidearm, fastballs, high and inside, and an underhand fade away pitch with the hand almost down to the level of the knees.

The reason I think I'm a good pitcher is I locate my fastball and I change speeds. Period. That's what you do to pitch. That's what pitchers have to do to win games.

Half the time, I have trouble following our own pitcher's sequence.

When I can buy strikes with that curveball, that just lets everything else play up.

I just try to make the pitcher work.

In my bullpen sessions, I'm just trying to feel comfortable, throw strikes, and not get too complicated.

You continue to try to hammer out fastball command the best you can.

Sometimes you go to home plate, and you have an idea, like a clear idea, of what they're going to throw to you. I think that's all: getting better pitches to hit, realizing when you hit the ball better, what pitch you hit, if you're chasing too much. If you figure out all that, you can get a little better as a player.

Give me 10 high school pitchers, let me spend a week with them, and I'll show you 10 pitchers who won't balk. It's not that difficult, and they better learn it.

Pitchers make adjustments, and it's up to the hitters to readjust and sort of tweak what they do.

There's been a couple of guys who have gotten me. I used to say Adrian Gonzalez. He's a good lefty hitter; he's hit a few home runs off of me. They were a couple of mistakes, so if you make your pitches, you're more likely to have a better outcome.

The big thing is, it's about learning which off-speed pitches to swing at. A lot of people say, 'Oh, this guy can't hit a curveball; this guy can't hit an off-speed pitch.' But it's about swinging at the right one. Swing at the hangers. Swing at the ones you can handle.

I'm trying to throw more curves because I'm always throwing fastball, slider, fastball, slider.

I never knew how to throw a fastball, never learned how to throw a curveball, a slider, split-finger, whatever they're throwing nowadays. I was a one-pitch pitcher.

I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.

I'm not executing my pitches. I'm not commanding my fastball, and I get behind in the count. When I try to throw strikes, I'm getting hurt. That's not the way I pitch.

Within the changing room, everyone has always known I'm best when I pitch the ball up and get a little bit of movement.

That's why it's so important to have that gap between your fastball and off-speed pitches: then, when you effectively locate your fastball, it plays at a higher velocity.

I've always been fastball-curveball and really relied on that pitch, and when it goes away, it just totally changes how you attack hitters.

I think I'm constantly trying to grow as a pitcher. You start going out there, you're learning stuff, you're finding different ways to try to get guys out. Trying to be creative.

Any time first time out, you just want to make sure you can get hitters out again.

I think we mixed a lot more curveballs than normal because they were either going after my drop or laying off of it and that's normally my go-to (pitch).

I know my fastball command will get even better.

I think the biggest adjustment I've made before coming here was going from High A to Double A. I was going in facing pitchers who had more experience and knew how to throw all their stuff for strikes and in hitter's counts, things like that.