D-backs pitcher Josh Collmenter working on his curveball
The renaissance man of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ pitching staff, Josh Collmenter made his first start of the spring season on Tuesday when he faced the Oakland A’s at Salt River Fields. He threw two innings and gave up just one hit while striking out two batters.
“Yeah I felt good. You know, for the most part I was able to throw my pitches where I wanted to,” said Collmenter. “A couple pitches maybe missed a little bit but for the most part, first outing, it was good to get out there and see a hitter in there. I can take quite a few things away from it.”
Something of note in Collmenter’s outing Tuesday was the fact that he was throwing his curveball more frequently.
The 27-year-old, who is entering his third season in the big leagues, said that’s a pitch he needs to continue to develop.
“That’s one thing that I’m going to try and work on. I told Wil (Nieves), just call it and make sure I throw it just because I’m a lot more comfortable with it; it’s just to get used throwing it in a game situation.”
According to BaseballProspectus.com,
last season Collmenter threw his curveball only 5% of the time. Tuesday after the game, he acknowledged that it’s something that needs to change.
“There are a lot of times that I want to throw it but I’ll kind of shy away from it because I’m used to throwing other pitches in a big situation,” he said. “I don’t want it to be the pitch that makes or breaks an outing.”
Looking at the breakdown of Collmenter’s pitches from last season, his four-seam fastball is clearly his favorite, throwing it 71% of the time, followed by his changeup at 24%. Out of 1,571 total pitches in the 2012 season, Collmenter threw his curveball only 83 times.
“The nice thing about spring training is I can force myself to throw it and just see what reactions I get from hitters,” he noted. “You can get a lot of feedback that way.”
