Dane Dunning is excelling in Texas. Now in his third season with the Texas Rangers after debuting with the Chicago White Sox in 2020, the 28-year-old right-hander is 8–2 with a 2.84 ERA over 92 innings. And although he’s fanned simply 59 batters, that fits him simply positive. It’s not that he doesn’t like strikeouts; he very a lot does. It’s simply that he lacks the ability profile of your prototypical modern-day ace. Epitomizing the time period “crafty righty,” he successfully limits harm by mixing and matching with considered one of baseball’s most expansive repertoires.
Dunning mentioned his atypical strategy, and the arsenal that goes together with it, when the Rangers visited Fenway Park previous to the All-Star break.
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David Laurila: Let’s begin along with your repertoire. How many pitches do you throw?
Dane Dunning: “Sinker, four-seam, cutter, changeup, slider, curveball. So six. I guess you could say that I’m a jack of all trades, master of none.”
Laurila: How lengthy have you ever had such a various repertoire?
Dunning: “Well, the four-seam is kind of new this year. I’ve thrown it on certain occasions, probably in my last four, five outings. The cutter I started focusing on last year, and this year it’s kind of come into its own. The sinker and slider I’ve had my entire life. The curveball has kind of been my entire life. I’ve always thrown a curveball, but it’s been like, ‘Let’s throw the curveball, let’s not throw the curveball.’ It’s sort of gone back and forth. I brought it back this season, because last year I was throwing two different sliders and they kept blending together. I had to get rid of that.”
Laurila: Can you elaborate on two completely different sliders?
Dunning: “So final yr I threw like a sweeper, sort of what everybody began throwing, after which my regular slider. The downside was that at occasions I’d be making an attempt to throw a standard slider and would throw the sweeper. Other occasions I’d attempt to throw a sweeper and it could be the traditional slider. What I wished was to have two distinct pitches. I wished to have the slower one with a bit of bit greater break, in addition to my common slider.
“One of the biggest things I worked on this year with the slider was trying to get more gyro and have it be a little bit harder. I felt like last year, because they blended together, it got a little humpy, a little bit curveball-y. So I brought back the curveball from, I guess, two years ago. It’s a comfortable pitch. It’s not an out-pitch or anything like that, but it’s definitely something that I can use in get-ahead accounts and against certain hitters in certain situations.”
Laurila: Basically, you shelved the sweeper.
Dunning: “Yes.”
Laurila: You used the phrase mix. Based on what you described, it looks like unpredictable is likely to be a greater phrase for it.
Dunning: “Yeah. I would have games where I was able to throw both and have good results from both, but there were also a lot of games where I didn’t. That’s why I’m throwing the curveball again. I wanted to create two distinct entities, and the curveball is slower with a bigger break, whereas the slider is sharper and harder. The slider has always been kind of my put-out pitch, so more than anything I was just trying to get back to my normal slider. That was probably the biggest goal.”
Laurila: How completely different are the motion profiles in your slider and your cutter?
Dunning: “When it comes to break, the biggest difference is that the cutter has a lot more vert. I’ve tried to average 10-plus vert on the cutter and then, whatever cut I do get on it, cut-ride… I mean, even if it doesn’t get as much as I’d like, it’s effective as long as I keep it up. That’s because it has so much separation from my sinker; it’s moving in a different direction. And the slider is more of a traditional slider, with just a little bit of depth action to it.”
Laurila: You’re considerably of an outlier in that you simply depend on six pitches. Loads of your contemporaries are prioritizing their greatest two pitches, and perhaps a 3rd.
Dunning: “I don’t belong in that group, as a result of most guys these days are throwing 97 [mph]. If you have a look at… Framber Valdez is a good instance. He’s received a extremely good four-seam, a extremely good curveball, and a extremely good changeup. He does have a slider that he makes use of in sure conditions, however for essentially the most half, his put-out-pitch is his curveball. When you have got pitchers which are dominant… like Chris Sale right here [in Boston]. He’s all the time been recognized for his slider, and he’s going to throw his slider.
“For me, it’s different. I don’t have the velo, I’m 90–91, so I’ve got to locate more. I’ve got to mix more. It’s about utilizing all of my pitches as much as I can. I need to spread the zone out as much as possible with pitches going in different directions. I would love to be an overpowering pitcher, but I’m not. I need to use what I’m able to do as my advantage.”
Laurila: Which pitchers within the league would you bucket your self with?
Dunning: “One of the people I learned a lot from last year was Martín Pérez. He obviously had a fantastic year, but it was his style of pitching, his being able to go backdoor cut, front-door sink, expand the zone. He used a lot of movements from side-to-side, up-to-down. Kyle Gibson is another one. Four-seams up, sinkers down, cutters up and away to a righty, front hip to a lefty. Again, it’s utilizing all of my pitches in certain scenarios. Sequencing is the biggest thing.”
Laurila: Is your game-to-game combine dictated extra by scouting studies, or extra by the texture you have got to your pitches on a given day?
Dunning: “We have a plan going into every sport, however for sure hitters… yesterday, for instance. [Jarren] Duran had actually good at-bats. I believed I pitched him decently properly, however he was capable of tag on some extra-base hits in opposition to me. First at-bat, I attempted to go slider back-foot, and whereas I did go away it a bit of bit within the zone, it was nonetheless a high quality pitch within the zone, He ended up hammering it for a triple.
“It took me two at-bats to figure it out. We tried different things. We had a scouting report going in, [and] first at-bat we went with the scouting report, but he put some really good swings on the ball. So you have to adjust with how the game goes. And if something’s not working, say I’m not landing my slider, then I might not be throwing my slider as much as ideally I want to. I’d have to figure out another way to get people out.”
Laurila: Do you care about strikeouts?
Dunning: “I imply, what pitcher doesn’t? I clearly like strikeouts, however I additionally know who I’m. I wouldn’t say that I don’t attempt to get strikeouts. If you watch quite a lot of my video games, you’ll see me throw high quality pitches and get strikeouts. I’ll additionally get jam-shots. Against the Yankees, I had a check-swing floor ball to first base in opposition to [Giancarlo] Stanton on a pitch that will have bounced. Things like that.
“But no. I mean, I’m a sinkerballer. I try to work quick and get quick outs. I try to miss barrels and get the ball on the ground as much as possible, because I have a talented defense behind me. So yeah, I’d like to get more strikeouts, but for the most part I kind of just play with the cards that are dealt.”
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com