Andrew Miller's slider: A brief appreciation
As you may have noticed, Orioles lefty reliever Andrew Miller is having a rather handsome 2014 season. In 59 innings for the Red Sox and O's, he's pitched to a 1.98 ERA, and he's struck out a rather astrounding 42.4 percent of hitters while walking just 7.0 percent of same. Bulletin: Those are very good numbers.
A large part of Miller's success has been his wipeout slider, a pitch he's called upon 42.1 percent of the time this season. Not surprisingly, Miller's slide-piece was critical to his 1 1/3 scoreless, high-leverage frames against the Yankees on Sunday night (BAL 3, NYY 2).
For starter's, here's Miller's slider making a hash of Derek Jeter. First up was a back-door job for a called strike two ...
And then came the whiff ...
The slider is a pitch typically prone to platoon weaknesses -- i.e., it's primarily a weapon against same-handed hitters. However, it so happens that Miller isn't shy about using the slider against right-handed batters. This season, he's thrown it to RHBs almost 40 percent of the time, and more than a quarter of the time he's thrown first-pitch sliders to the opposite side. In a related matter, righties are batting .115 and slugging .154 against Miller's slider this season. When you can throw a slider to a platoon-advantaged hitter and get those kind of results, then you're much more than a mere LOOGY.
And that brings to us to the miseries that Miller's slider inflicted upon Brett Gardner for the final out of the eighth ...
When you have that much glove-side run and you still pretty much hit the mitt where it was initially positioned, you have command and an ability to throw not only strikes but quality strikes. At this point, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that lefties like Gardner this season are batting .057 against Miller's slider with zero extra-base hits.
There are pitches that neutralize the hitter, and then there are pitches that afflict the hitter. Consider Miller's slider, at least the 2014 version of it, to be among the latter.
(Data: FanGraphs, Brooks Baseball)
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