The Phillies’ Sam Coonrod made the best of his stay on the injured list by developing a deceptive new pitch

Coonrod, who missed the first four months of the season because of a torn rotator cuff, has added a cutter to his arsenal and the early returns have been promising.

Sam Coonrod's new cutter has proved to be deceptive and pairs well with his fastball that hit 98.9 mph against the Pirates on Sunday.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

by Alex Coffey

Published Aug. 30, 2022, 11:57 a.m. ET

PHOENIX — Sam Coonrod was battling shoulder pain since spring training. The Phillies placed the reliever on the 10-day injured list with a shoulder strain on April 7, and he was transferred to the 60-day injured list a week later. An MRI revealed he had a torn rotator cuff. Following a nine-game rehab assignment, Coonrod pitched in first big-league game of the season on Aug. 19. A four-month delay to his season was not his idea of a good time.

But Coonrod said that something good came out of his time on the 60-day IL. In May, he started working on adding a cutter to his arsenal. He’s been using it in games, and the early returns have been promising.

In the finale of the Phillies’ three-game series against the Pirates on Sunday, Coonrod mixed in a few cutters. It helped him get him through a quick 1-2-3 inning.

“That’s exactly what we want,” catcher J.T. Realmuto told him, as they were walking off the field.

Pitching coach Caleb Cotham approached Coonrod with the idea to add a cutter a few months ago. The slider was contributing to Coonrod’s arm pain, but he also was looking for a pitch he could throw to righties and lefties. Coonrod decided to use a traditional slider grip, but throw it like a fastball. It comes out as a cutter, but many people think it’s a slider.

“It’s a cutter,” Coonrod said. “The way I release the ball makes it come out like a cutter, even though it reads slider. It has just a little bit of depth, but not too much depth. It has a little bit of cut to it. Just a different look than the fastball.”

Coonrod wasn’t able to work with Cotham directly because he was rehabbing his arm, mainly from the Phillies’ complex in Clearwater, Fla. They touched base on the phone, and Coonrod worked on the pitch with Phillies strategist Pat Robles. He said developing the cutter while he was rehabbing was challenging, mainly because he wasn’t able to try throwing it off a mound until June.

Translating the pitch from flat ground to the mound wasn’t always a smooth transition. Coonrod said sometimes he’d get a good feel for the pitch on flat ground, only to lose that feel for it on a mound. But over time, the pitch started to come — and, luckily for Coonrod, time was not in short supply.

“[Developing a pitch while you’re injured] can be very difficult,” he said. “But I would say it’s easier during that process than to do it while you’re here. It’s nearly impossible to do while you’re in the major leagues. Usually, you have to develop a pitch in the offseason.”

Since his return on Aug. 19, Coonrod has yet to allow an earned run in five innings, with two walks and six strikeouts. He’s lighting up the radar gun — in his outing against the Pirates on Sunday, he was up to 98.9 mph — but his cutter has proved to be quite deceptive and pairs well with his fastball to help keep hitters off-balance.

“He’s been tremendous,” said Phillies interim manager Rob Thomson. “His stuff’s good, and he’s throwing strikes. He’s got a nice little slider.”

Whether you call it a slider or a cutter or something else entirely, Coonrod is optimistic that his newest pitch could help him and his team. And at a time when the Phillies’ bullpen is thin at best, the emergence of not just a healthy Coonrod but also an effective Coonrod is something the Phillies gladly will welcome.