Rick Porcello knew just who to turn to when he realized he needed to switch up the grip on his changeup.
The Red Sox right-hander wasn’t thrilled with how he was gripping the ball in the second half of Boston’s 2018 season and turned to Eduardo Rodriguez for advice. Porcello credited his teammate with having a “great changeup” and simply asked Rodriguez to show him how he executes the pitch.
“I wasn’t really happy with my changeup the second half of last year,” Porcello said, via MassLive. “And Eddie (Rodriguez) has got a great changeup. I knew he threw a two-seam changeup grip. And that was something that I thought could possibly work for me. And I asked him about his grip and he showed it to me.
“Each day I got a little bit more comfortable with it, and it got better and better and now that’s the grip I’m going to go with this year,” Porcello added. “It’s funny. He was really excited he taught me something because of all us are usually trying to keep him in line. No, you can always learn something from somebody and he’s got a great changeup. So hopefully it will help me out a little bit, too.”
Porcello held batters to a .236 average when he threw his changeup last season with a .219 on-base percentage, according to MassLive. Porcello certainly will be an integral part of Boston’s pitching rotation in 2019, and if his changeup does indeed improve, it may spell bad news for batters.
