By Shi Davidi
MLB Insider, sportsnet.ca
TORONTO — The change is so subtle that Toronto Blue Jays pitching coach Bruce Walton says most people wouldn’t have even noticed.
A simple five or six inch drop in Brandon Morrow’s arm angle early last season began the process of unlocking the electric right-hander’s potential. Transformed from a straight over the top “Iron Mike” to a “high three-quarter” hurler, Morrow was suddenly able to find the strike zone more consistently and locate his dominating repertoire.
He later learned to pitch to contact by reducing his velocity, so that on days when his fastball doesn’t sit at 95-96 m.p.h., he can still thrive. But the door to Morrow’s evolution into the dominant power pitcher long envisioned for him first opened with that slight drop of his right arm.
“We freed him up,” says Walton. “We thought that by throwing over the top, he kept missing north and south, and a lot of north, which is up. And he just looked tied up, it didn’t look comfortable, didn’t have that flow to it that you see in a power arm.
“So by dropping his arm a little bit, getting his hand away from his head, it freed him.”
Walton’s use of the word freed is an apt one as the Blue Jays have done that both physically and mentally since acquiring the 26-year-old from the Seattle Mariners in December 2009. Reliever Brandon League and outfield prospect Johermyn Chavez headed west in the deal that right now looks incredibly one-sided, although some feel the 22-year-old Chavez has middle-of-the-order potential and may yet alter the trade’s final sum.
Seattle made Morrow the fifth overall pick in the 2006 draft, passing up on local favourite Tim Lincecum, who fell to the San Francisco Giants at No. 10. Rising through the ranks with that comparison hanging over him, Morrow’s development went through stops and starts as the Mariners flip-flopped between using him as a starter and a reliever.
The back and forth went on throughout his four seasons in Seattle, and it wore him down. By the time the Blue Jays picked him up, he was a young man very ready for a new opportunity and a fresh start.
“This is the most comfortable spring I’ve had,” says Morrow, who was 10-7 with a 4.49 ERA in his first season with the Blue Jays. “I pretty much knew most of the years (with Seattle) I’d be breaking with the team, I just didn’t know what role I was going to be in. A couple of spring trainings I started off being a starter and then ended up as a reliever, or I thought I was going to be a starter through the off-season and then came in and I was going to be a reliever.
“But ever since I came here it was a set role, ‘we want you to start,’ and that’s really been a blessing. It’s been great just to be able to focus on that, and keep building on that.”
Removing the uncertainty about his role was the Blue Jays’ first step in developing Morrow, but not its last. Helping him find a way to better command the ball and reduce his walk rate became the next order of business, primarily when he started off the 2010 season wildly.
Morrow walked five over five innings against Baltimore in his Blue Jays debut, and was consistently up in the strike zone when the White Sox knocked him around for seven runs over four innings in start No. 2.
| THE MORROW TRADE | |||
| PLAYER | TEAM | In 2010 | UPSIDE (MLB.COM) |
| BRANDON MORROW, RHP | TORONTO | 10-7, 4.49 ERA | Armed with a nasty slider and a fastball that routinely registers in the mid-90s. |
| BRANDON LEAGUE, RHP | SEATTLE | 9-7, 6 SV | Occasional bouts of inconsistency, but is usually able to get the job done. |
| JOHERMYN CHAVEZ, OF | SEATTLE (A BALL) | .315, 32 HR, 96 RBI | No. 9 prospect in Mariners’ system (2011) |
The experiment with the lower arm slot began in his third outing, a gem against the Kansas City Royals, but the change didn’t immediately take afterwards. Morrow crashed and burned May 10 at Boston when he walked six over 1 2-3 innings, and sick of struggling to find the strike zone, he decided to make the changes stick.
“The disaster game in Boston kind of made me focus in on really baring down on my location,” says Morrow. “That was kind of an eye-opening start in that respect.
“It was off and on trying to learn (the new arm angle) for a few games, and really once I got comfortable doing that I kind of evolved to have a little bit of a turn in my mechanics and my windup, and things kind of kept evolving and getting better.”
Learning to pitch with a more controlled exertion level marked another key step.
His work as a reliever with the Mariners created a bit of a max effort mentality for Morrow, and learning that less can be more on the mound, especially as a starter, was crucial.
Walton would have him thrown bullpens at 90-92 m.p.h. to “practise the art of pitching,” and to serve as a “safety net when we didn’t have the 97.” The more uniform effort level helped him reduce his pitch counts, and the theory is that long-term it will help his longevity, too.
“You think back to two years ago when he was a one-inning guy with Seattle, that he’d flash 98 to 100 at times,” says Blue Jays manager John Farrell. “Then all of a sudden he became a more complete pitcher, showed more feel, had the ability to throw his breaking ball for strikes, sink the ball a bit more. Not only did he begin to understand himself greater, but there was an increased confidence level.
“Once he really incorporated and repeated the turn over the rubber a bit more consistently, I think it just allowed him to dominate the bottom of the strike zone more, give him just a bit more time over the rubber to leverage the ball downhill.
“That kind of stuff pitching in the bottom of the strike zone is a pretty lethal combination.”
There was no better display of that than his Aug. 8 outing versus the Tampa Bay Rays, when he fell one out short of a no-hitter. Morrow finished with a one-hitter, walking two while striking out 17, an indication of just how dominant he can be.
This spring, Morrow has been able to focus on getting his fastball and slider back to where they were last year, and improving his changeup and curveball. The starter-reliever drama in Seattle now well behind him, he’s ready to leave the worries about his delivery and command in the past, as well.
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“I think answered the question of whether I’d be suited to start, I pretty much solved that problem,” he says. “Being in the rotation – that’s what I always wanted to do. It was always a question early on whether I was going to A, get the chance, and B, even be able to do that. With the Mariners that was kind of the issue, we never really ironed that out.
“Coming here it was a set plan, and that just really helps you focus and really takes your mind off the other things. You don’t have to worry about, well what happens if this happens, or if this person makes the rotation am I pushed out, whatever. It’s just a lot easier to know your role.”
And already Walton sees the difference.
“He’s a strike thrower now,” says Walton. “Now his game is more of a chess game, learning how to attack the opponents, learning how to use his stuff, just building on what he learned last year.”
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