What lies ahead for Ross Stripling has not yet been decided, but regardless of the role the Los Angeles Dodgers set for him, a new changeup grip remains a focal point of Spring Training.
Stripling was among the pitchers who kept active by throwing during the offseason, and it entailed experimenting with a refined changeup. The pitch was effective for the right-hander last season, but he’d received feedback that it was easily recognizable out of his hand.
Stripling continued to tinker with the new grip upon reporting to Camelback Ranch and has worked on becoming more comfortable with it in each of his three Cactus League starts thus far. Particularly when facing right-handed batters.
The changeup wasn’t sharp against the Seattle Mariners, which Stripling said he will explore why that was the case and explained how it led to relying on the curveball, via SportsNet LA:
“Really, my changeup wasn’t there, so I was having to throw a bunch of curveballs. I was throwing some good changeups, I would pull a couple, and then my good ones were just short. They were balls out of the hand, so I was getting into a lot of bad counts. Curveball is kind of my old faithful, so I was going to that well a little bit more than you would want to in a Spring Training game.
“But when you’re not as sharp with your other pitches, it comes down to just getting guys out, and that was the curveball tonight. … If you had asked me 30 minutes ago, I would’ve said (changeup progress is) great. Now it’s kind of back to the drawing board a little bit. I threw some good ones in the last inning. The last one I threw was to a righty, which has been a priority, and I cut the heck out of it. We’ll go watch it and see how it’s coming out of my hand.”
Even with a changeup that lacked, Stripling collected three strikeouts and limited the Mariners to just one run despite allowing four hits over three innings. Seattle’s only damage against Stripling was a towering fly ball to right field that carried just enough for a home run.
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