He is not the most intimidating figure on the pitching mound. He does not overpower hitters with a 95+ mph fastball. He does not even have the best breaking pitches. Yet somehow, Chicago White Sox ace Mark Buehrle finds a way to get Major League hitters out.
And after watching him retire 45 consecutive batters, I’d say he does his job rather well.
But how does he do it?
I think there are two reasons why Mark Burehrle has been so successful at the big league level. The first of which is his quick pace on the mound. If you have ever watched him pitch, it is as if Burehrle has someplace important to be every night he pitches. He gets the ball, fires, gets the ball fires, with no wasted time in between. This up tempo style of pitching is important. For one thing it keeps all of Burehrle fielders in the game. They have to be ready because of Burehrle quick pace, and they don’t have time to let their focus wonder off. By working quickly, Burehrle is reducing the risk of a metal error by one of his teammates in the field. And that helps.
However, I really think that the key to Burehrle’s success lies elsewhere other than his frantic pace. I think it lies in his great change- up.
In today’s game, we don’t here a lot about the change-up anymore. We here about pitchers with other “nasty” off speed pitches such as the curve ball, and slider, but the pitchers with the great change-ups don’t get mentioned a lot. Mark Burehrle is one of those pitchers who has a great change-up. And it has made him the pitcher he is.
As I stated earlier, Buehrle lacks the velocity to overpower hitters. A 90 mph fastball is about tops for him. But because his change-up is so good, the fastball that comes after that change-up looks 3-5 mph faster to the hitter than it really is. And that illusion can really fool a hitter.
What is really unique about Mark Buehrle’s great change-up how he grips it. Most pitchers grip the change up with three fingers across the seams or with the circle change grip. But Mark Buehrle is different. He chokes the ball, holding it with all of his fingers and his thumb, unlike most pitches where only three fingers and the thumb are used. When he throws the pitch, he use the same arm speed as he would his fastball, just as every pitcher who throws an off speed pitch does. This deceives the hitter, making it look as though as fastball is coming. But when Buehrle releases the ball, the grip cause the ball to come out slower, resulting in a devastating difference in velocity from Buehrle’s fastball, and a lot of hitters out on their front foot swinging all to early.
There was a very successful left handed pitcher named Warren Spahn who won 363 games in his career, who said “Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing,”. And when you when watch Mark Buehrle pitch, you’d have to say that he has that upsetting timing part figured out really well.
