2. Neither his fastball nor his slider are what they were in 2022.
3. Interestingly, and somewhat (if only somewhat) encouragingly, both pitches tend to improve over the course of an outing, with the fastball getting more legs and the slider getting more bite.
4. Unfortunately, he has to go deep into an outing to get to that point, and if your closer is going deep into an outing, things are already bad.
5. Unfortunately as well, even though both pitches tend to improve over the course of an outing, neither quite get there, with the slider having a dip at the tail, rather than that frisbee movement that had batters chasing it a foot and a half away.
6. With less movement, he has to throw more strikes. Nobody's chasing anymore.
7.
They really do. Entrance music in general just sets people up to fail.Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 8:01 amThey really need to reign in the hype over Diaz. It's embarrassing.
8. I think he'll get it back. Most of it, anyhow. He just needs to find confidence in his legs again. In the meantime, though, he might do a lot of damage to the team if they keep relying on him. They need to mix things up at the back end.