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During spring training, he threw some live batting practice to Troy Tulowitzki and Jose Bautista, who provided him with positive feedback. Over the winter, he focused on building up his core and lower-body strength so he can hold the various moves without disrupting his arm motion. He experimented with some of the elements last year, but didn’t really have the confidence in the movements to employ them on a consistent basis. Praise like that underlines the potential gains for Stroman with the hitch. He didn’t make too many mistakes, he pitched on the corners and his stuff was electric." We definitely had a hard time with him but I thought (last Thursday) was the best stuff-wise we’d seen him, too. "It’s really hard to time up even without all the stuff he’s doing out there. "He’s coupling his already really good pitch repertoire with some trickery from the windup and it’s not easy," says the Rays third baseman. And it was similarly successful again during his strong debut against the Tampa Bay Rays last week, when he allowed a run on six hits and two walks with five strikeouts over 6.1 innings.Įven Evan Longoria, who has more career hits against Stroman than anyone else with at nine in 24 at-bats, agrees there’s something to it.

The hitch worked to great effect for Stroman when he pitched for the United States in the World Baseball Classic. So any time you can disrupt that timing it kind of throws hitters off." "A lot of hitters hit off timing, almost off a count, like a one, two, three count. That’s why you’re seeing it," says Stroman, who makes his second start of the season Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Brewers. I finally feel really comfortable with it. "I’ve always wanted to do it, I just didn’t feel comfortable with it last year. No matter which option he chooses, it’s another thing opponents in the batter’s box must now deal with when facing him. Sometimes he may even use a regular, old, standard windup, too.