Some pitchers have a pitch they can rely on and that’s a huge part of why they’re successful (i.e., Mariano Rivera and his cutter).
For Tyson Ross, that pitch is his slider. This season, he’s shown his affinity for his slider throwing it 36.6% of the time. It is the most of any pitch in his repertoire, and it’s the most he’s ever thrown over the course of his career.
Thanks to that nasty slider, he’s found his way to the top of the National League leaderboards. He’s currently in the Top 20 in ERA, strikeout rate and xFIP.
Padres’ pitching coach Darren Balsley told MLB.com’s Corey Brock: “His slider is just so good. It’s such a devastating pitch … and when it’s that good, it’s kind of hard not to throw it a lot.”
Ross’ slider is, in fact, more than good—it’s nearly unhittable. Dating back to last season, he’s thrown his slider 1,011 times. Over that span, hitters have hit just .176 off the pitch and have whiffed on it 25 percent of the time. To put that in perspective, Yu Darvish’s whiff rate this season on his slider is 16 percent, Jeff Samardzija’s is 13 percent and Masahiro Tanaka’s is 14 percent. Ross also owns a 130:19 strikeout-to-walk ratio with the slider.
He’s also inducing a ton of ground balls.
Ross’s 60.8 percent ground-ball rate is the fourth best rate in baseball. After ditching the pitch last season, Ross is back to throwing his two-seam fastball at a 27.8 percent rate and he has a 72.1 percent ground ball rate with it. About 60 percent of Ross’ two-seamers have been either down in the strike-zone or called low, and as long as he’s able to keep that pitch down he should continue to induce ground balls at a career high rate. Ross’ home park is one of the hardest to hit a home run in, and he’s making it even harder for opposing hitters by limiting the number of fly balls he gives up.
The advanced metrics are — for the most part — also trending in a positive direction.
• Strikeout rate: 8.6 in 2014, 7.6 for his career.
• Contact percentage: 70.2 percent in 2014, 77.4 percent for his career.
• Contact percentage on pitches outside the strike-zone: 50.4 percent in 2014, 60.3 percent for his career.
• Swinging strike percentage (whiff rate): 12.8 percent in 2014, 9.8 percent for his career.
I do expect a little bit of regression (his .277 BABIP and 3.24 xFIP suggest that he hasn’t been quite this good), but even when it hits I still believe he’s going to be a very good starting pitcher.
THE UNHITTABLE SLIDER OF TYSON ROSS
Moderator: Angels
