Detroit – Juan Nieves had a simple question for reliever John Schreiber.
“Why do you throw every pitch to the same side of the plate?”
Schreiber, the 25-year-old from Rockwood, Mich., had ascended swiftly through the Tigers system in four years, and was promoted from Double-A Erie to Triple-A Toledo on April 24. Nieves, the Mud Hens pitching coach, watched a side-arming right-hander throw all his pitches, especially his slider and change-up, to his glove side – inside to left-handed hitters, outside to right-handed hitters.
After seeing him struggle to put away hitters in his first few appearances at Toledo, especially lefties, Nieves went to work.