It makes a HUGE difference if they know what pitch is coming, and it sounds like the coaching staff made it worse by making him constantly pitch from the stretch, other teams must have been laughing their butts off. Now, it is an easy fix, and he can go back to being the old Lidge. DD
depending on the speed and the difference between that and your fastball...if you can locate both pitches for strikes, that's a good thing. but you're right that the value of the slider is that it confuses you to think you can hit a pitch that may or may not be in the strike zone.
I think it is a chicken and egg thing, his control was ok at the beginning of the year but as he pressed more and more as teams were lighting him up, it got worse. Plus, knowing when a slider was coming makes it DANGED easy to load up on balls, making each strike more important. IMHO, this is 90% of his problem. DD
Perhaps a 3-up, 3-down inning for Mr. Lidge is a silver lining from tonight? I mean, holy crap, THREE freaking blowouts in a row AT HOME???
Pretty disgusting isn't it? We could take all the runs we scored the entire series and we could not have beaten the Giants in one of the games.
This reminds me of a story about Andy Pettite in one of the playoffs he was in for the Yankees. Pettite has been usually very good in the playoffs, but he was terrible one year. When they went back and reviewed the film, they found he was clearly tipping his pitches by the way he was holding the ball in his glove. In the majors, if they know what is coming, you are dead. I sure hope this is the same issue with Lidge. I found it really, really strange that the entire National League knew when to stop swinging when he was throwing a slider. I also find it frustrating that the entire National League knew he was tipping his pitches, but the Astros coaching and pitching staff could not pick up on it. Here is the good thing about Lidge: His two problems are that he's tipping his pitches and his mechanics are off. One can be fixed overnight. He'll have to work on the other, but all major league pitchers get hitches in their mechanics from time to time. He still has a 97 MPH fastball, and a dangerous 85 MPH slider. He hasn't lost his "stuff." I predict he nails down a solid save in his next opportunity, and he'll be well on his was to regaining his mojo. Heck, he's already thrown a couple of good innings in the last couple of days, despite the general cruddiness of the Astros.
What??? 85 MPH slider???? And you say he hasn't LOST his stuff?? I remember when he used to throw it for 88MPH...
He does throw it faster than 85... but honestly, with the break that he has on it IF the batters don't expect it coming... it would still fool them at 85.
