Mariners reliever Mark Lowe went from his worst to his best when he threw two perfect innings Friday night against the Nationals. The secret was a simple change in his delivery.
Lowe ditched his windup and is throwing every pitch out of the stretch.
After he allowed four hits, a walk and five earned runs _ with no strikeouts _ in 1/3 inning June 7 at Boston and followed that with a hit and a walk, again without a strikeout, two days later at Toronto, Lowe locked himself in a video room and watched tapes of his delivery from the past two seasons.
What he saw was a windup in which his first step backward became wider, to that point that it tossed him off-balance when he needed to throw a fastball with some extra velocity.
“With the windup, it seemed like the first hitter was always getting on base either with a walk or a hit,” he said. “I felt like my timing was good, but obviously it wasn’t. My landing foot wasn’t getting down at the right time. I never had that problem out of the stretch.”
He talked about it with pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, who suggested throwing every pitch out of the stretch.
“I make better pitches out of the stretch, so I’m using it all the time,” Lowe said.
Friday was his first opportunity to use the new approach, and Lowe was perfect with it. He pitched two hitless innings with three strikeouts.
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