Tanner Houck’s four-seam fastball wasn’t effective when the Red Sox asked him to use it as his primary pitch during the first half of his first full professional season.
Houck, who Boston drafted in the first round in 2017, went 3-7 with a 5.50 ERA, 1.78 WHIP, .267 opponent batting average, 41 strikeouts and 41 walks in his first 12 starts (55 ⅔ innings) at High-A Salem in 2018. The Red Sox didn’t care about results. They were focused on the development of his four-seamer.
It worked.
He used his four-seam fastball 46% to dominate the playoff-bound Atlanta Braves on Saturday.
Houck struck out 10 and improved to 3-0 with a 0.53 ERA in his third major league start, leading the Red Sox 8-2 over the Braves.
The 24-year-old righty has allowed just six hits and one earned run while striking out 21 in 17 innings so far. The opposition is batting only .113 against him.
“I think it’s still a short sample, but it’s against three good teams that we feel pretty good that this guy can do this against the best hitters in the game,” manager Ron Roenicke said.
“Chaim (Bloom) has got a smile on his face right now so you know it’s pretty good,” Roenicke added.
Houck used a different approach to beat the Braves than he used to beat the Yankees.
Houck threw 36 two-seam fastballs, 27 sliders, 20 four-seamers and two splitters against the Yankees (Statcast). But he relied more heavily on his four seamer to beat the Braves, who used their top lineup.
Houck threw 43 four-seam fastballs vs. Atlanta. He added 37 sliders and threw 14 two-seamers, which he considers his best pitch.
He recorded 16 swings-and-misses: 10 with his slider and six with the four-seamer.
“I felt like I was commanding it (the four-seamer) really well today,” Houck explained. “I felt like I had a lot of ride and just kind of pop on the ball. So I went to it. They are an aggressive low-ball hitting team. So I just went out there and kind of road the fastball up and it worked out really well. And also playing off the two-seam and playing off the slider as well."
He has had three different game-plans in his three different starts against three different postseason teams and executed them all.
“He’s got a quick arm. It’s hard to see the ball. He hides it well,” Roenicke said. “The fastball gets on them and it’s got big movement on it. And then the slider’s been really good. I didn’t know he had that kind of slider. But these guys (hitters) are not getting a good look at that thing. So you know it’s spinning really well."
Both left-handed and right-handed hitters have had difficulty picking up his slider.
“When I talk about his slider, I saw him pitch in spring training for us,” Roenicke said. “But I don’t remember that slider being so hard to see. They’re not picking up the spin of it. And his fastball, even though the velocity isn’t way up, because of the movement and because he hides the ball well, it really gets on hitters fast.”
Houck added, “It comes down to game-plan and executing. I spent a lot of time down in Pawtucket (this year) working on being able to execute whether it’s fastball away, four-seam, two-seam, slider.”
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