Over five seasons as ace of the Pittsburgh Pirates Jordan Whitehead Jersey Buccaneers , Gerrit Cole threw one of the game’s hardest, heaviest fastballs, and he threw it often. The pitch helped him make millions of dollars. It put him in contention for major awards. Hitters swung through it again and again, and Cole seemed content not to mess with a good thing.

But when Cole was traded to the Houston Astros this offseason, a funny thing happened. He became more frugal with his fastball and ended up more overpowering than ever.

Cole has joined some of the game’s best pitchers – including Cleveland’s Corey Kluber and the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw – in benefiting from a puzzling baseball paradox: In an era when pitchers are throwing harder than ever, they’re maximizing success by using fewer fastballs.

Pitchers – even ones with blazing fastballs like Luis Severino and Chris Archer – are using more offspeed than ever recorded, and while many aces think the downturn is a trend, some believe baseball could be entering a new age dominated not by 100 mph heaters, but by a steady stream of breaking balls and changeups.

So why is the hardest-throwing generation of pitchers ever going the way of the junk-baller?

Depends who you ask, but one culprit stands out to Cole, Kluber and Kershaw: baseball’s swing-changing batters.

”You can call it launch angle, or you can call it the upper cuts,” Cole said. ”There are a lot of swings that are dictating breaking balls.”

Cole’s move away from a fastball-first approach is striking given the reputation of his hardest pitch. He topped out at 99 mph as an ace at UCLA, and his fastball was the headliner on a resume that earned him an $8 million signing bonus as the first overall draft pick in 2011 by Pittsburgh. Under the guidance of Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage, Cole pounded the bottom of the strike zone with that heater, and for years, it worked. He was an All-Star and finished fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2015, and was considered among the game’s most overpowering starting pitchers.

Then baseball’s flyball revolution took flight – a movement of hitters using upper-cut swings designed to crush exactly the kinds of sinking fastballs Cole was delivering. After never allowing more than 11 home runs in a season Will Dissly Color Rush Jersey , Cole was tagged for 31 last year.

So it was time to change things up.

From 2013-17, Cole threw his fastball 65 percent of the time – well above the league average. But this year, he’s cut that fastball rate by about 10 points, replacing those heaters with sliders and curveballs. The new look is working. Cole is 8-1 with a 2.59 ERA through 15 starts and leads the American League with 138 strikeouts.

”I think you’re just continually trying to mess timing up, especially when guys are trying to slug,” Cole said. ”When they’re trying to hit it out of the park every time, you have an easier time changing speeds.”

Kluber and Kershaw have made similar adjustments in the past couple years. Both Cy Young winners rank among the league leaders in fewest fastballs thrown this season.

”Guys are geared up to swing for a fastball,” Kluber said. ”I guess it’s almost rare now to see somebody actually, like, go the other way with the breaking ball.”

Kluber has set a career low with a fastball rate of 41.8 percent this season. Same for Kershaw, who has dropped from a 72-percent fastball clip in 2010 all the way to 42.8 percent in an injury-hampered 2018.

”The hitters tell you what you need to do,” Kershaw said. ”And for me, I guess it’s been throwing a lot more breaking balls.”

Cole, Kluber and Kershaw suspect the tide will turn back, perhaps soon, once hitters recalibrate to the number of four-seam fastballs pitchers are throwing up in the strike zone.

But Trevor Bauer, Kluber’s analytically-minded teammate in Cleveland, thinks the offspeed uptick is only going to spread.

Two years ago Dante Pettis Color Rush Jersey , Bauer and Indians closer Cody Allen watched as 6-foot-8 Yankees fireballer Dellin Betances carved up Cleveland’s hitters with a fastball that averaged 98 mph. Allen – no slouch himself with a fastball around 94 mph – told Bauer that if he could throw hard like Betances, he wouldn’t even bother with a breaking ball.

”No,” Bauer recalled telling Allen. ”He should never throw a fastball.”

Bauer’s theory is that the threat of a 100 mph fastball might be more dangerous to hitters than the fastballs themselves.

”As guys throw harder, guys have less and less time to hit that offering,” Bauer said. ”So they have to speed up in order to catch up to it, which, that makes the breaking ball more effective.”

Hitters are left picking between two nasty poisons – risk being behind on triple-digit fastballs, or jeopardize taking ugly swings on breaking pitches as they dart out of the strike zone.

Veteran slugger Todd Frazier was with the Yankees last year when New York’s hard-throwing bullpen led by Betances, Aroldis Chapman and Chad Green overpowered hitters while also posting the lowest fastball rate in the majors.

”I have to set my feet for 98 mph, and understand I might get 84-88 mph slider,” said Frazier, now with the New York Mets. ”It makes it tougher on you.”

And yet, Frazier and his fellow hitters aren’t close to jumping off their fastball-first approach.

”The baseline of hitting is the fastball,” Mets teammate Jay Bruce said. ”You have to stay on the fastball. For me personally, that’s what my timing of th When Stephen Curry’s shot needs a little something, he dives into ”The Menu.” Warriors teammate Klay Thompson might put up a few extra shots after an off night. If Kevin Durant is trying to rediscover his rhythm, he does some studying that usually means watching his made shots.

Golden State boasts some of the world’s best shooters and each has his own way of bouncing back from a poor performance.

For Curry, there is no actual list or book for ”The Menu.” The two-time MVP and his right-hand shooting man Authentic Arden Key Jersey , Bruce Fraser, keep all the details in their heads for what the record-breaking 3-point sharpshooter could use work on any given day. It comes in especially handy when the shots aren’t falling, though Curry certainly found his touch fast in returning from nearly six weeks on the sidelines with a knee injury to score 28 points in a Game 2 win against New Orleans on Tuesday night. Golden State leads the series 2-0 going into Friday.

Maybe Curry needs more catch and shoots one day. Or off-the-dribble work. Sometimes, it’s ballhandling into his shot. Perhaps a look at balance, rhythm and core, or just focusing on spot shooting from various places.

”We collaborate. It’s like going to dinner with your wife, maybe. Maybe some people’s wives tell them what they want,” said Fraser, a Warriors player development coach. ”Different restaurant, different menu. We have a lot of things to pull from and it’s usually based one day, need. What does Steph need that day? … The Menu has all sorts of creative pieces in it that get the workout you want. Sometimes we’ll piece things together and go a la carte, sometimes we’ll make it a simple meal. I’m kind of having fun with it.”

On the opposite end of the defending champions’ practice floor, Thompson’s shooting plan might be nearly as precise as he works back from a bad night – he went 4 for 20 and 2 of 11 on 3s Tuesday. Thompson will usually put up a few extra shots after a poor performance. Depending largely on how he feels physically, he might take as few as 50 shots, or well more than 200.

Either way, it typically doesn’t take Thompson long to feel right again.

The belief Thompson has in his shooting ability is unwavering and he ignores any critics when it comes to his shot, considering they aren’t ”in the gym with me shooting every day.”

”I will never doubt myself when it comes to shooting. I put too much effort into it,” he said Thurman Munson Jersey , adding, ”I know what it takes.”

In a Game 4 loss to San Antonio in the Warriors’ first-round series, Thompson finished 4 for 16 and scored 12 points. He was 42 of 71 – 59.2 percent – over the other four games against the Spurs.

”They make up for the bad shooting nights on the days before the bad shooting nights. They can’t get out of it by going into the gym and just shooting,” said Chris Webber, a TNT analyst who played 15 NBA seasons. ”They’re great shooters and all the thousands of shots they’ve been taking since college is what makes them bounce back.”

Webber believes coach Steve Kerr’s offensive system allows players to keep shooting and break out of ruts.

”Knowing where you’re going to get your shots, how you’re going to get your shots, and you have the freedom,” Webber said, ”but it’s all because of how hard and how many shots they take and put in the work when no one’s looking.”

After that Game 4 against the Spurs, Thompson took a heavy shooting day.

”Probably a couple hundred, nothing serious,” he said matter-of-factly.

Kerr, a talented 3-point shooter in his own right, considers the psychological component to the process as well.

”Sometimes the best thing to do if you have a bad game is to not shoot,” he said. ”And you have to feel that, and as a player once you’ve been in the league a few years you get it. You start to understand, `OK, maybe I feel a little tired so I’m going to go walk Rocco (Thompson’s bulldog) today instead down at the park and enjoy some sunshine. Or go play golf or something. Or there’s a mechanical flaw and it’s almost like a golfer Redskins Cheap Jerseys , you go to the range and you go, `I’ve got to find it.’

”But as a player you figure it out and the more years you’ve played in the league the easier it is to tell what the right approach is.”

After an off-night, Durant mentally goes back through each possession and studies his shots – ”mainly my makes.”

Curry constantly changes his workload and regimen. Durant notes, ”it takes a lot to shoot a basketball … there’s a lot you’ve got to think about in a couple of seconds.”

After most practices starting during last year’s title run, Curry and Durant engage in good-natured shooting contests from all over the court . They regularly take 10 shots from different spots, keeping track of who hits more. They’re usually very close.

”It’s a feel thing. You monitor your fatigue level because during the season, 82 games, there’s gaps in the schedule where you can go a little harder,” Curry said. ”Back-to-backs obviously you can’t. Me and Q come up with, we call it `The Menu.’ I walk over, open up the fake menu, read down the list and see what type of workout we need. He usually tries to come up with on a scale from 1 to 10 like a 2, a 4, a 6, 8-type of workout. We go that way. There’s never really a set kind of regiment to it.

”I have certain drills I like and I know.