In a world where relievers are throwing harder and harder, setting radar guns ablaze, Matt Barnes has become the Boston Red Sox’s most-reliable bullpen arm with a good ole’ fashioned Uncle Charlie.
Barnes’ curveball was voted by players as one of the hardest pitches to hit in baseball, and it has made him of the more effective bullpen arms in baseball. And it all started in the outfield of a Double-A diamond. Barnes picked up his curveball from Brandon Workman while the pair were prospects playing for Double-A Portland in 2013.
Workman showed Barnes, a 2011 first-round pick out of UConn, the grip he used on his curve, and Barnes immediately implemented it, chucking a dominant outing in his next start (Barnes was drafted as a starting pitcher before shifting to the pen).
“I’ve had it ever since,” Barnes told Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe. “This is the best it’s been. I have a very good feel for it right now.”
He’s not kidding. Barnes’ curveball virtually has been untouchable.
Hitters are batting .034 off Barnes’ hook, striking out 17 times on the deuce in 29 at-bats. Barnes, in general, has been incredibly effective in the back end of Boston’s pen and his three saves don’t justify his importance in late innings. He has a 2-0 record with a 1.88 ERA over 14 1/3 innings with a whopping 27 strikeouts.
That those numbers coincide with Barnes turning to his curveball more than ever before is no coincidence.
Barnes has gone to the curve 57.2 percent of the time this season, a massive uptick from year’s past.
He’s turned to the hook even more — 71.4 percent of the time — against left-handed hitters, who are just 1-for-13 with eight strikeouts against the righty. The lone base hit came on a fastball.
Barnes’ 49.1 percent strikeout rate lands him second only to the Milwaukee Brewers’ Josh Hader, widely considered the best reliever in the game.
He’s also planting the curve below the strike zone and getting batters to chase more than he has in the past — 35.6 percent, a 9.1 percent increase from last season.
This is what the Red Sox saw glimpses of last season, especially in the postseason, and it likely is why Barnes said through the offseason that he was ready to take on the closer role. While he technically is not the closer, he is putting together an All-Star campaign thus far in 2019, and he’s done it all by pitching backwards — a rarity in today’s game.
