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Editor's note: This is the latest installment in an occasional series on pitchers in the Atlantic League and the pitches they throw.
Dave Veres credits his entire 10-year major league career to one pitch.
Before he learned to throw the split-finger fastball he struggled. He bounced through four different organizations during a three-year stretch. He was in his mid-20s and had failed to post an ERA under 4.40 for four straight seasons.
But in 1994: Eureka.
In 16 games in Triple-A Tucson he compiled a 1.88 ERA. He finished the season with the Astros, earning the first of his 95 major league saves.
He would go on to be the closer with the Rockies and Cardinals, earning a career-best 31 saves.
Question: Who taught you how to throw the split-finger?
Answer: A guy named Brent Strom, who was a pitching coach with the Astros (organization) when we were at (Triple-A) Tucson. Actually he showed a guy named Shane Reynolds the same pitch, and Shane had an outstanding split-finger and pitched for the Astros for a long time. (Strom) showed it to me, and I started throwing it in 1993. That was my career.
I spent eight years in the minors before then. I threw it one year, and I was in the big leagues.
Q: Why couldn't you make the move to the majors before then?
A: The first four or five years of my career I was a
starter, and then I went to the bullpen. The split-finger was just a pitch that turned my career around. Before it, I had a decent fastball and a so-so slider. But the split-finger was just a pitch I could throw for strikes, and lefties couldn't hit it. It's weird. It's just one of those things.
I've tried to teach it to other guys. I don't know. Maybe it's just my release, or they can't hold it my way, but they have trouble picking it up.
Q: How do you throw your split-finger?
A: You take the ball and grip it ... by just following the seams where it makes that horseshoe. And I want the index finger on the seam. That's why I get a blister there, because that's where most of the action is coming from.
The grip is not that wide at all. Some guys throw forkballs, and they wedge their fingers way deep. I try to hold it as loose as possible. That way I get more rotation, and it doesn't tumble as much.
You can hit the back of my hand, and the ball will fall out. My hands aren't that big, but my fingers are flexible because I take a softball every day and stretch them out.
Q: What does the pitch do?
A: It has a sinker-type action to it as opposed to a tumbler. Mine is more of a side spinner. A lot of guys swing at it because they think it's my fastball.
And I think that's why I've been so successful throwing it, because it looks just like my two-seam fastball.
It's like a true split-finger. (York pitching coach Tippy Martinez) was saying it's kind of like Bruce Sutter's. It has higher spin and just dies at the plate.
I like to throw mine at the knee area. I usually throw it right at home plate or right in front of the plate. Coming in it looks like fastball at the knees, and, AND ... ahhh -- they swing at it. (And the ball drops out of the strike zone.)
That's my plan, but it doesn't always work. (Laughs.)
Q: Do you ever throw your split-finger for tumbling action?
A: Not really. That's more of a forkball. If you watch (Revolution right-hander) Aaron Rakers, he grips the ball deeper, and he gets more of a tumbling action.
Q: When do you throw the split-finger?
A: I can throw it in any situation. I can throw it for strikes if I want to. I can throw it away to right-handers or left-handers. It's one of those pitches that I have better command of it than my fastball.
I can go down and in to a righty or down and away to a righty.
It's all in the release.
jseip@ydr.com; 771-2025
