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Right-handed reliever Kyle Finnegan has made four appearances since coming to the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline from the Washington Nationals. He hasn't given up a run in any of them and has allowed just one hit with six strikeouts.
It's a small sample size, so there's no need to make too much of it. But it's worth noting that the Tigers' staff has tweaked his arsenal since he came to Detroit, asking him to throw more splitters and fewer fastballs.
“It's adapt or die in this game,” Finnegan told Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. “I guess they identified some things. Maybe that's why they brought me over here. I'm embracing it, and I'm trusting it. There are a lot of really good minds over here.”
That includes pitching coach Chris Fetter and assistants Robin Lund and Juan Nieves. Their hope was to help Finnegan generate more swings and misses, and so far it has worked. His 21.7% whiff rate with the Nationals has ticked up to 23.3%, though that's still below the league average for relievers, which sits at 26.2%.
But when he is giving up contact, at least so far, he's generating far more ground balls and fewer line drives.
“We do the prep work before the game, understanding what pitches might play better,” Finnegan continued. “It's been splitter-heavy to a lot of these guys. They've been calling it, and I agree with it, so I throw it. The results have been there.”
That doesn't mean he's abandoned his fastball. Between the Nationals and Tigers, he is throwing the pitch 64% of the time and opponents are hitting .224 against it, according to Baseball Savant.
“The four-seamer was one of my better pitches, so I wanted to throw my better pitch more often,” Finnegan said of his time in Washington. “I kept falling back to the bread and butter — the fastball.”
The Tigers are currently in the midst of a series against the Chicago White Sox. Finnegan threw a scoreless inning in Game 1, with Game 2 scheduled for Tuesday night at 7:40 p.m. ET.
