A couple of weeks ago, Adam Wainwright noted that he needed to change the release point in his delivery. Prior to that, he wasn’t awful, but he certainly wasn’t the Wainwright that the team or fans had become accustomed to. He was striking out 7.19 per nine innings but languishing with a middling 4.35 ERA, a ho-hum 1.09 HR/9 and an utterly unacceptable 4.57 BB/9.

Since then, however, he has been a new man, or, rather, more like his old self: In his last three games, including Tuesday’s 8-1 victory over the Brewers, Wainwright has a hefty 8.75 K/9, a minuscule 0.76 ERA, a 1.90 BB/9 and a 0.38 HR/9.

So how did he do it? Was that release-point business just some mumbo-jumbo that the coaching staff had put into Wainwright’s head, or did he really make a change to his delivery, resulting in improved pitching? Thanks to the uber-cool pitch F/X tool at Brooks Baseball, we can see whether and just how much Wainwright has changed his delivery. The following graphic shows the release points in each of Wainwright’s starts this year — pay attention to the change that occurs between his May 10 and May 16 starts:

During his first seven starts, Wainwright’s release point was inconsistent, higher (around the seven-foot mark) and more directly over his head (about a foot off-center). But beginning with his May 16 start — his first after acknowledging the change — his release point has consistently been down and to the side more — about six inches to a foot each way.

Perhaps interestingly, the release-point change isn’t resulting in much change to his curveball — the average horizontal break is 6.81 (was 7.18 prior to 5/16) and the vertical break is -9.44 (was -9.07). But check out his two-seam fastball (or what Gameday considers his two-seam fastball):

The two-seamer is moving more, sliding more, as it were: The average horizontal break runs in on righties (away from lefties) about two more inches, from -7.05 to -8.92, and the vertical change is is almost as much, going from 9.46 down to 7.55.

So the early returns indicate that Wainwright has indeed changed his release point, and for the better. It appears that it has particularly benefited his two-seam fastball. Kudos to both Wainwright and Dave Duncan. That’s more like the Adam Wainwright of old.

This entry was posted by Pip on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 11:56 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.