Santana’s Changeup: Hitters Never See It Coming

By JACK CURRY
New York Times

Johan Santana carried a baseball with him every day, for hours at a time, trying to become more comfortable with the feel of his fingers against the seams. He would scoop up a ball as a minor leaguer with the Minnesota Twins and immediately move his fingers across the four seams, the same way he held his fastball and his evolving changeup.

For Santana, clutching the ball was his way of making it feel like an extension of his left hand. To develop his changeup and have the confidence to throw a pitch that depends so much on touch, he realized that he first needed to strengthen his relationship with the baseball.

So when Santana was not pitching off a mound or long-tossing across the outfield, he marched around with one, all the while pursuing a grip that would make the changeup his lifelong friend. Santana speaks about a baseball as if he were discussing a person.

“A baseball is my partner,” he said. “I have to keep it with me at all times. We have 162 games a year, plus spring training. You spend more than half the year with a baseball in your hand. You can’t forget that.”

Six years after Santana began meticulously honing his four-seam grip as a starter in Class AAA, he is still doing it. Except now he is doing it as the premier pitcher in baseball and the new ace of the Mets. Now Santana, a two-time Cy Young award winner, is doing it with a changeup that makes batters bend and buckle.

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