Baseball America’s Bill Mitchell talked with Cincinnati Reds 1st rounder Nick Howard yesterday about his 2014 season. Howard talks about the finish to his college career, his introduction to professional baseball and what he is working on in the Arizona Fall League.
“I’m really trying to focus on my breaking ball and changeup,” he said, “and trying to get lefty hitters out with the changeup and keeping hitters off-balance by taking off speed or (if) it’s a breaking ball trying to change their eye level and keep them off-balance.”
It’s always good to hear a pitcher with a strong fastball wanting to work on the offspeed stuff. Howard has posted this line so far through two games in Arizona:
| W | L | ERA | IP | H | HR | BB | K | GB% |
| 1 | 0 | 5.14 | 7.0 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 62% |
So far in his career he has had big groundball tendencies. During the regular season he posted a 57% groundball rate and he has carried that to Arizona so far as well with a 62% rate in two starts.
Howard will take the mound this afternoon for Surprise. The game will be at home so we will have some more Pitch F/X data to look at for the right hander. It will be his second game with the system running. Last week I took a look at how things went the first time around.