 | Cards Talk: Cardinals arms rise with sinkers |
 Yahoo Sports is reporting Following his seventh start last season, Adam Wainwright(notes) dragged himself to the video room. He was incensed, stumped and ready to lock the door and not open it until he figured out his problem.
“Something was wrong,” Wainwright said. “I wasn’t able to sink the ball.”
For Wainwright – for any St. Louis Cardinals pitcher, really – this is a problem. Wainwright grew up throwing four-seam fastballs, the sort that run straight and fast, and came through the Atlanta Braves organization knowing no different. Only when St. Louis traded for him did Wainwright learn the gospel of its legendary pitching coach, Dave Duncan: Pitchers wearing Cardinals uniforms throw two-seam fastballs that sink, and those who don’t might as well go somewhere else.
“Four-seamers are from Satan,” Wainwright said.
And yet his two-seamer had abandoned him, and he was laboring through his starts, needing 119 pitches that night against Cincinnati to make it through six innings. So Wainwright took a seat alongside the Cardinals’ ace, Chris Carpenter(notes), and started comparing footage of his 2008 season with his 2009 starts.
“We’ve got a Cy Young winner and a Hall of Fame pitching coach who believe in film sessions,” Wainwright said. “Think about it: You’re able to watch hitters’ weaknesses, exploit them, use your strengths to get them out.”
Immediately they noticed the problem. Wainwright’s arm slot was too high. About five inches off, he estimates. Taller pitchers tend to struggle with consistent arm slots, and the 6-foot-7 Wainwright not only was losing the tail on his fastball, his slider lacked bite and his changeup missed its late fade. By lowering his arm slot to the high three-quarters, he hoped to jolt his stuff back to life.
To read more..
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AheiMXc05D3twZgllwSra_URvLYF?slug=jp-nlcentralpreview033010&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
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