![]() ![]() ![]() Himself a high school basketball player in Colorado, Rogers was quick to note that he landed some dunks, too (something he holds over Taylor, who was never able to). Informed of the backstory of how his new teammate came to throw in his unique fashion, Rogers said, “I don’t have a cool reason why, other than I sucked.” Tyler Rogers, who has a firm hold on the league’s lowest arm slot (approximately 14-15 inches off the ground), developed his funky delivery when his junior college coach suggested it as the best path forward for a right-hander whose velocity was topping out in the mid-80s. SF Giants issue statement on A’s, and a former Athletic talks Coliseum: ‘I loved every aspect of it’ But I think Ross is built on pitching to hitters’ weaknesses, identifying that one thing that opposing hitter doesn’t do so well and exploiting that weakness.”īetween Stripling, his six-pitch arsenal and his 7-foot release point Hjelle and his 7-foot height Tyler Rogers and his knuckle-dragging delivery and his identical twin, Taylor, who throws from a typical left-handed arm slot, the Giants have a few looks batters don’t see very often. “You’ll hear a lot of pitchers around baseball now say pitch to your strengths,” manager Gabe Kapler said. This spring, he’s added another changeup, one with more movement and generates more swings and misses, which he thinks he’ll mix in six or eight times a game, too. In an era when many pitchers use data to identify their best pitches and spam hitters with them - see Jakob Junis and his slider - it’s a true guessing game between Stripling’s four-seamer (33.7% of his pitches in 2022), changeup (27.2%), curveball (21.9%) and sinker (7.5%). It makes me a different look that you don’t see very often.”Īdding to Stripling’s deception: It’s truly up in the air, not unlike his right hand, which of his six offerings a batter will see on any given pitch. “At the end of the day, now with how we measure things analytically, it’s what makes me unique,” Stripling said. From his senior year of high school until he was traded to the Blue Jays in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season - 12 years - Stripling finished all but one season with ERAs below 4.00. It took years of minor league pitching coaches trying and failing to change him - one, he said, was convinced he inverted his arm behind his head - before Stripling came to realize his unique delivery could be a feature, not a bug, on his path to the big leagues. Ross Stripling throws his first live BP w/ #SFGiants /gZPJOGAGoH Once I was healthy, that arm slot stuck.” “I had this goofy cast on my leg and I was teaching myself how to pitch and that’s just how I did it,” Stripling said, comparing his motion to the slow, rigid pitching machines that feed batting cages across the country. It wasn’t until he couldn’t use his lower half that he began to mess around with a pitching motion using his upper body, which permanently changed him from junior-varsity infielder to MLB-bound pitcher. He played varsity football (as a wide receiver) and, of course, basketball (as a forward) before he lettered in baseball. Mobility, something you develop in one portion of the body while it is restricted in another part, apparently.Īt 18 years old, a senior at Carroll High (Southlake, Texas), Stripling was barely a baseball player, let alone a pitcher. To get my arm up into that position, yeah, that would hurt. “I tell you what, I don’t have the shoulder mobility that he does, so I guarantee that it would hurt. Hjelle, some 8-9 inches lower, can barely comprehend the physics of it. With his right hand almost directly above his head, the ball leaves Stripling’s fingertips an average of 6.97 feet above the ground, the highest release point of any qualified starter in the majors last season (Justin Verlander, also just under 7 feet, comes closest). “It’s definitely something that you don’t see a whole lot,” said Sean Hjelle, who despite his status (at 6-foot-11) as one of the two tallest men to throw a pitch in a major-league game releases the ball considerably lower than Stripling. Not only do batters barely know what’s coming with Stripling’s kitchen-sink repertoire (up to six pitches, with the addition of a second changeup), it’s coming at them from an angle they rarely see: directly over the top. There is one lingering effect of Stripling’s ill-fated dunk attempt, now nearly a decade and a half in the past: It’s what he credits as the origin of one of the majors’ most unique deliveries. This is important because, as Stripling says with a chuckle, “I don’t have PTSD.” And wouldn’t you, if one attempt went so awry that it put your leg in a cast? Standing an athletic 6-foot-3, Ross Stripling wants you to know that he can dunk. ![]()
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