Other than the mammoth bombs, not bad…

Mop up duty has already pitch f/exed Ricky Romero (his curve looked really good –  and I had no idea he threw so many sliders), so let’s go back a couple of days and take a look at Jesse Litsch, who wasn’t bad against Detroit other than giving up three home runs (and a bunch of hard-hit balls), including two to Miguel Cabrera.

Jesse now throws both a cutter and a slider, but his slider moves in about the same way as the pitch that was being called a cut fastball, that he threw all the time before he was sent down last year and reinvented himself.

He also had the rest of his repertoire working, and threw a nice balance of Curve, 4-seamer, cutter, slider, and more changeups than he was even at the end of last year. The problem with his outing came down to the same two pitches:  his slider left out over the plate (the old cutter, that he tends to lean on too much), or his new 4-seam fastball located in the worst possible place for them: down and in (and one was just right down the middle):