Phillies’ Andrew Vasquez throws his slider 87% of the time, but it’s uniquely difficult to hit

ATLANTA — On May 17 in San Francisco, in the bottom of the fifth inning, Andrew Vasquez stepped onto the mound. He faced three Giants hitters — Casey Schmitt, Blake Sabol and Brandon Crawford — and threw just one fastball and a curveball. The rest of his pitches were sliders.

This shouldn’t be surprising. According to Fangraphs, Vasquez throws his slider 87% of the time, which is the most in the big leagues among pitchers who have faced at least 50 hitters. But that doesn’t make it any less un-hittable. When Crawford stepped in the box, with two outs, he knew exactly what he was going to get. And he got it four times. He still struck out.

Crawford is not alone. Vasquez’s slider is uniquely difficult to hit, even when hitters know it’s coming. There are a few things at play. He is commanding the ball better. He dropped his walk rate from 10.3% in 2022 to 8.6% in 2023. But Vasquez has also been able to manipulate the slider better than he ever has, in large part to an adjustment he made this past spring.

He was standing in the outfield, with pitching coach Caleb Cotham. Normally, Vasquez would throw his slider over the top, down and in to righties, or down and away to lefties. But he had been toying around with a side-arm slider.

“Have you ever seen my drop down?” Vasquez asked Cotham.

“No,” Cotham replied.

Vasquez threw a few side arm sliders.

“What’d you got on that?” He asked.

“It looks great to me,” Cotham replied.

They decided to incorporate it into his game. Now, Vasquez’s slider is coming out of two different slots. It’s technically one pitch — but catcher J.T. Realmuto says that Vasquez can pitch it in five different spots.

“When he throws it from up top, it’s a little bit harder and a little bit more down,” Realmuto said. “When he throws it from a side arm angle, it’s a little slower and more sweep-y and more side to side. He can throw that one backdoor for a strike. The harder, over the top one, is more down and in to righties or down and away to lefties.

“He just does so many different things. Drop down slider back door, he’ll drop down, down and in, he goes over the top up and away, he goes over the top down and in. He can do a lot with one pitch which makes it very effective. He manipulates the movement, the spin, the velocity. He does it all.”

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Vasquez, 29, didn’t wake up one day and decide he wanted to throw the same pitch to nearly every hitter he faced. At first, he leaned on the slider out of necessity. When he began his college career at University of California Santa Barbara in 2012, he had trouble commanding his other pitches — especially fastballs. He couldn’t keep them in the zone. The only pitch he could command was his slider. So, he stuck with it.

“It became my backbone,” Vasquez said. “I was struggling with command. I just started throwing the slider more and it went from there. It was working. I had a really good feel for how it’s going to break, and the shape that it has, and I was able to get ahead because I had better command of it.”

When Vasquez was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in 2015, the first thing they told him was to throw more fastballs. He tried, but again, struggled with his command. The next year they gave him the green light to throw more sliders, and has been sticking with that ever since.

“Obviously the shape and the movement of it is really big, but it’s also really late and really sharp,” Realmuto said. “So most of the time we have a big, sweeping breaking ball. As a hitter, you can kind of track it because it’s slow, and gradually breaks. His really breaks late and sharp, so it comes out straight and takes a hard turn. The break is a lot later and sharper than most sliders you see in the big leagues. Hitters have less time to react.”

Cotham added, “It’s really tough on lefties because it’s starting from behind. And righties, same idea. It’s a ball until the last foot sometimes, when it’s away. The break is enormous, and he’s throwing a ton of strikes. You almost have to swing the bat but you don’t want to swing at balls.”

Ironically, Vasquez started throwing more fastballs about a month ago, because Craig Kimbrel showed him a different grip when they were throwing in the bullpen. He feels like he has better command on it. He’ll still lean on his slider — but it is a weapon to have in his back pocket. His fastball comes out of the same tunnel as the slider, but it stays up.

“There have been a lot of at-bats where guys — especially lefties — know a slider is coming for the most part, but there’s still that last bit of thinking, maybe it’s a heater,” Cotham said. “He’s done a nice job of throwing heaters.”

Vasquez, who was claimed off waivers from the Giants in November, has been one of the Phillies most reliable relievers to date. He’s posted a 1.21 ERA this season through 22.1 innings pitched. He doesn’t take his success for granted. The Phillies are Vasquez’s fifth organization since he was drafted.

“I’ve kind of been bumping around, so it’s been hard to get some stability,” he said. “This might be the longest I’ve been on one team in the past season and a half. So I think that definitely helps.”

Throwing a pitch as effective as his slider helps, too.

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Thomson said that José Alvarado (left elbow inflammation) arrived a little stiff on Saturday, so he played catch off flat ground instead of throwing a bullpen. They are going to see how he feels on Sunday. “He was 98 the other day in the pen, so I think he stepped on it a little too much,” Thomson said...Cristian Pache (right meniscus tear) got nine at-bats in an intersquad game on Friday. He will get tested on Monday and Tuesday -- by running the bases and doing some strength training -- and if that goes well, he will go on a rehab assignment. Darick Hall (right thumb sprain) took eight at-bats in an intersquad game on Friday. He will be assigned to single-A Clearwater on Tuesday. Rafael Marchan (fractured right hamate bone) will be assigned to single-A Clearwater on Tuesday as well.