I was ready to take umbrage at Sonny Gray blaming his bad performance in pinstripes to the "the organization pushed him to throw a slider far more often than he wanted to" but then I rethought a bit.
I read this:
Quote:
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According to Brooksbaseball.net, Gray threw his sinker 29.86 percent of the time last season, followed by his four-seamer (25.77 percent), curveball (23.68) and slider (15.89). In 2017, it went sinker (33.34 percent), four-seamer (30.01), slider (15.27) and curveball (14.54). In 2015 with Oakland, a year Gray went 14-7 with a 2.73 ERA and finished third in AL Cy Young voting, the righthander threw his four-seamer 36.49 percent of the time, followed by his sinker (23.83), slider (16.69) and curveball (13.66).
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That's quite a shift and, assuming that his assertion is true that management was messing with his pitching repertoire, may indeed explain, somewhat, why he fell down in New York. But speaking of that, I also remember reading that he was much better away from New York than in Yankee Stadium, which may point to a more pressing reason for his futility.
EDIT: Uh, no. I misread that quote and I needed to lay out the numbers to keep them straight:
I'm a bit concerned that the percentages don't add up to 100%; what was the rest, knuckleball or eephus?
But assume that the numbers are correct for his slider, going across. That would indicate the guy is full of crap. The other reason comes to fore as a result: He couldn't take the pressure of playing in NYC.