因為不夠資深....所以就po在這...>< Sinkerballers such as Wang can get a firm grip on success -- without a strikeout pitch Wednesday, September 13, 2006 BY KEVIN MANAHAN Star-Ledger Staff NEW YORK -- Tom Glavine reeled them off like the names of his kids: Orel Hershiser, Mike Scott, Tom Browning, Kevin Brown, John Smiley. Then he stopped, grinned and wise-cracked: "Is that enough, or do you want me to keep going? Because there are more." By the time he finished, he named more than a dozen: Sinkerball pitchers who were getting hitters to beat baseballs into the ground when Glavine's major-league career started with the Atlanta Braves. Glavine's point was simple. During the late 1980's, pitching coaches had a Scorched Earth Policy: Get batters to hit the ball on the ground. But today, in the strike-'em-out-and-make-'em-look-silly era of the split-finger fastball and changeup, the sinkerball has become a lost art. "Blame the radar gun," Glavine said. "Sinkerball pitchers are a dying breed. Everyone wants power, power, power." But that might change soon. Pitching in the biggest market in baseball, the Yankees Chien-Ming Wang, a 26-year-old right-hander from Taiwan, is among those making the sinker fashionable again. At 17-5, he is on the verge of tying Chan Ho Park's record for the most victories by an Asian pitcher -- and 20 wins is not impossible. All the while, he is laughing in the face of the pitching gurus who worship the strikeout: In 200 innings, he has struck out just 65 hitters. "Don't need strikeouts," he said in his broken English. "Just get outs." HOW TO THROW IT Basically, a sinker is a fastball thrown -- with fingers along two seams of the baseball -- so that it dips as it reaches the plate. Wang holds his sinker with his index and middle fingers as fleshy parentheses for the ball's sweet spot. When he releases the ball, he pushes harder with his index finger, creating spin. The ball approaches the strike zone, then dives suddenly. The sinker is an option usually taught to pitchers who don't have an overpowering fastball, or had one and lost it as they aged. In today's game, the split-finger fastball and four-seam fastball are the pitches of choice for hard throwers. The splitter is thrown with the ball wedged between the index and middle fingers. For their most overpowering fastball, pitchers grip the ball across four seams. In the minor leagues, Wang had a six-pitch repertoire. That was way too many, Yankees coaches realized. But it was the sinker -- taught to him by former big-league pitcher Neil Allen -- that he seemed to have the biggest knack for throwing. Ultimately, the Yankees decided Wang would throw the sinker 90 percent of the time. Sometimes, it's 100 percent. Glavine never thought he'd see the day again when a pitcher could dominate by using the sinker as his main pitch. Wang is showing that hard throwers -- his fastball has been clocked around 95 mph -- can master it, too. "When I first came up to the majors, there were a ton of guys who threw sinkers, and threw them as their best pitch," Glavine said. "That's because the focus in pitching was on movement and location. Now, all people care about is how fast a guy can throw. "When you find a kid with a power arm, all they want to teach him is the four-seam fastball. There were times when I would ask about showing a kid a sinker, and the coaches would tell me, 'Don't mess with him now. We'll teach him that when he needs to know it.'" MEL, DOC AND THE SINKER Mel Stottlemyre knows sinkers. He won 164 games in the majors in an 11-year career with the Yankees -- mostly on lousy teams -- while throwing sinkers. Three times he won 20 or more. As the Mets pitching coach in the 1980's, he wanted to teach the sinker to Dwight Gooden, then a hard-throwing Cy Young Award winner. But the front office told Stottlemyre: Hands off! "I thought that was a pitch that Doc could learn how to throw and be very effective with," Stottlemyre, who ended his career as the Yankees pitching coach, said from his home near Seattle. "But people in the organization who make the final decisions told me not to do it. They were afraid it would mess him up. When they have a kid who can throw as hard as Doc could, they didn't want him thinking about other things. I thought it was a mistake. Still do." Glavine, who has won 288 games in the majors and is headed for the Hall of Fame, said he ran into the same attitude with the Braves whenever he tried to take a young pitcher under his wing. "I was talking to (former teammate) Greg Maddux about that not long ago," Glavine said. "We were laughing because we realized that neither of us would be a high-round draft pick today. We don't throw the ball hard. Guys who throw the ball with movement and location have less value now than they've ever had at any time in baseball history. Maybe guys like Wang can change that." Among the few other major league pitchers who use sinkers are Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Derek Lowe of the Los Angeles Dodgers. "Everyone should have it in their repertoire because a ground ball, at worst, can turn into a single or a double," said Hershiser, who taught the sinker during a stint as pitching coach of the Texas Rangers. "But a fly ball can be double, triple or home run. I'd rather work with the first equation." MAKING THEM MUTTER Even though hitters know it's coming, they have trouble hitting the sinker squarely. It drives them nuts. "You hear hitters muttering to themselves in the box," Yankees catcher Sal Fasano said. "As a hitter, you don't want to face a guy who throws sinkers. He gets into your head. You see the ball, you swing, and you top it." And when it comes in at 90-plus-mph, like Wang's? "It's like hitting a shot put," pitching coach Ron Guidry said. Al Leiter, who pitched for the Yankees and the Mets, said sinkerball pitchers have other endearing qualities. They are less prone to arm troubles than power pitchers, they can pitch a lot of innings, and they are always one pitch from getting out of a jam. So, then, why are they a rarity? "Mostly because pitchers believe they need more than one pitch to be successful," Leiter said. "But they don't. Look at Mariano Rivera. He does it with one pitch, the cutter. If you can throw one pitch well enough, that's all you need. "Wang throws more than 90 percent sinkers. Hitters know it's coming. But they still can't hit it. Why? Because he throws it over 90 mph. Not many guys can do that." Kevin Manahan may be reached at [email protected]. --

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