“Right now I have a lot of confidence in my splitter. I’ve been working on that for a long time. Now I think it’s the time to trust a third pitch. I see the result and I get more confident to throw it in the game. It helps me a lot. I just had two pitches -- a sinker and a slider. Always they know I’m going to throw a sinker or a slider. Right now I have a third pitch -- my splitter -- and it’s more difficult for hitters.”
One of the game’s elite closers this season has added a pitch to his repertoire. And it’s working quite well.
Mets pitcher Jeurys Familia has now thrown 16 straight scoreless innings since allowing a go-ahead home run to Justin Upton of the Padres on July 30.
He’s done so with his usual assortment of pitches (including a 100 mph fastball that struck out Mookie Betts to end Sunday’s game), but also with a nasty splitter that is making it harder to predict what he will throw.
Familia, who had dabbled with a variant of the pitch in the past, has thrown 28 splitters over the past 19 days (23 of which were to left-handed hitters). They’ve resulted in two singles, a walk and eight outs. But lefties are 1-for-7 in at-bats ending with a Familia splitter.
The pitch was vital on Sunday, as it’s the one that struck out Alejandro De Aza with two on and nobody out and the Red Sox down a run in the ninth inning. Familia then threw six straight splitters to left-handed power hitter Travis Shaw, the last of which Shaw grounded to short into a force play.
What’s particularly nasty about the Familia splitter is how hard he throws it. The average velocity on those Familia splitters is 93.9 mph. The next-fastest average splitter is thrown by Arquimedes Caminero of the Pirates, 89.7 mph.
The splitter that struck out De Aza was clocked at 95.5 mph, the fastest one Familia has thrown yet, which prompted Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz to say after the game: “That Familia, man, throwing that splitter 95 miles an hour, you crazy? No one can hit that.”
Heck of a season
Familia has 35 saves and a 1.67 ERA this season, a year after posting a 2.21 ERA in a setup role. The biggest improvement for Familia has been in his strikeout-to-walk rate. He had 73 strikeouts and 32 walks in 2014.
This season, he has 68 strikeouts and 15 walks, and the gap between those two could widen unless hitters figure out how to lay off his new pitch.