Los Angeles Dodgers southpaw Alex Wood is coming off a career season in 2017 that resulted in his first All-Star Game selection and a top-10 finish in National League Cy Young voting.
Wood posted a 16-3 record on the year, aided by a personal-best 2.72 ERA, 3.32 FIP and 1.06 WHIP across 152.1 innings (25 starts). But his production waned by the end of the year as a result of fatigue, and because of that, Wood struggled to go deep into outings.
In an effort to alter his mechanics, Wood recently revealed that he will pitch exclusively out of the stretch. It was a change influenced by watching Washington Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg and former teammate Yu Darvish’s success after eliminating their respective windups.
The 27-year-old further elaborated on his decision to only pitch out of the stretch going forward, expressing his desire for more consistency, via Chris Thomas of MLB.com:
“You don’t see a right-handed hitter with two different swings when guys are on base or aren’t,” Wood said. “I went back and forth with it all offseason. It’s hard enough to, over the course of 150-200 innings and into the postseason, it’s hard to stay consistent enough going through one set of mechanics, much less having to do two. That was my main reasoning behind it.”
When Wood pitched out of the stretch in 2017, his statistics were noticeably better. Opposing hitters posted a .523 on-base plus slugging percentage against him with runners on base compared to .684 when the bases were empty.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts noted that Wood’s velocity declined during the second half of last season, in addition to him missing his spots more often. Perhaps by simplifying his approach, Wood will be able to find more consistency with his pitches and location, and sustain a larger workload during the regular season.
His first test comes Monday, when Wood is scheduled to make his 2018 Spring Training debut against the Texas Rangers.
