The Anatomy of An Inning: Justin Slaten Has Been One of the Best Relievers in Baseball
The Anatomy of an Inning Shows you how the rule 5 Pick is locking down the middle
Welcome back to another edition of The Anatomy of An Inning. My name is Jacob Roy, and I pretend to know pitching better than the pitchers themselves. If you’re new here or need a reminder of what this is all about, I take an inning from the previous week or so and break it down, one pitch at a time. Each pitch should have a purpose, I’m looking at each of them individually to try to go beyond the box score and tell the full story.
The Situation
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73287073/2147732580.0.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
Let’s go to Sunday, April 14th. The Red Sox bullpen is shorthanded, and they need multiple innings from Justin Slaten to get back in the win column. He enters the seventh inning after getting a quick double play to end the sixth.
AB #1: Logan O’Hoppe
Although Slaten is in his first Major League season, it’s actually his second time seeing O’Hoppe. The first time, he struck him out on three pitches, including two incredibly ugly swings on sweepers in the dirt. O’Hoppe is a fairly aggressive hitter, but he does struggle with pitches down in the zone, so I’d expect more sweepers from Slaten.
Slaten starts with a cutter on the inside edge for called strike one. Against a righty, you’d like to see this down and away, but O’Hoppe is taking all the way, so we’ll take the free strike. 0-1.
Here’s the sweeper he was able to fool O’Hoppe with twice in their last meeting. This one stays up in the zone, and O’Hoppe, although out in front, is able to poke it to left field for a lead-off base hit.
AB #2: Jo Adell
Adell is another free-swinger with tons of strikeouts in his game. He whiffs on just about everything, but breaking balls give him extra trouble (47.1% whiff rate in 2023).
