CLEVELAND -- Tom Gorzelanny was searching for an answer. The left-handed reliever was struggling mightily on the mound last season for Detroit and needed to figure out a way to get back on track in a hurry. Former Tigers pitching coach Jeff Jones had an idea.
"He said, 'Have you ever tried throwing sidearm?'" Gorzelanny recalled.
The lefty pitcher had toyed with that approach sporadically in the past, but he never experienced consistent enough results to stick with it. In a mound session with Jones, Gorzelanny tried it again and saw that his slider had a sharper break and his changeup had more drop to it.