Trust the speaker. Nathan Eovaldi knows the subject well. \u00a0<\/p>\n
And if deGrom bounces back like Eovaldi has, well, look out. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But relying on a four-seamer and a splitter can allow hitters to eliminate one, focus on the other, and, at the very least, improve their chances. Now, they are guessing at one of three or four others, all at different speeds. The curveball, which is his slowest pitch, also adds another layer of speed differential. He essentially throws pitches at 75, 85, 90 and 95 mph. It\u2019s tough for anybody to really hone in on velocity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game he kind of has a different pitch mix going,\u201d said Kyle Higashioka, who has caught his last seven outings in which Eovaldi is 5-2 with a 2.15 ERA. \u201cNo matter what he has working for him, he has something he can make work. That\u2019s why he is so good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s just got a more balanced mix of pitches working for him. \u00a0I think he was kind of struggling with trying to find more than just a splitter and maybe he just got a little predictable for some teams. These last several outings he\u2019s had a lot more weapons to work with, so that just allows him to mix and match that much more. He has an answer for every situation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eovaldi made his first two starts of the season with Danny Jansen behind the plate, but it\u2019s clear he and Higashioka work extremely well together. They combined for a 1.65 ERA in 11 starts last year. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a great relationship,\u201d Eovaldi said. \u201cBoth the catchers are very prepared when you go into these games and especially the third game of the series. They have my pitches and it\u2019s very different from Jack [Leiter] and deGrom. I like to go over the hitters and how I\u2019m going to attack them and then I don\u2019t really change too much.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trust the speaker. Nathan Eovaldi knows the subject well. \u00a0 And if deGrom bounces back like Eovaldi has,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2389],"tags":[4805,42,5,139,54,3211,4,83515],"class_list":["post-702075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-article","tag-astros","tag-baseball","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houstonastros","tag-mlb","tag-tp-nathan-eovaldi"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116594705951237236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}