On the broadcast Tuesday, Rex Hudler lamented that Jorge Soler isn’t seeing as many fastballs anymore. It’s all sliders and curves... breaking pitches, according to Uncle Hud.
That’s kind of true. Nobody is seeing a higher percentage of sliders this year than Soler. According to Statcast, 28.5 percent of the pitches Soler has seen this year are sliders, the most in the game. (Statcast says the batter seeing the second highest percentage of sliders is Hunter Dozier at 26.7 percent. If you watch a Royals game, you’re guaranteed to see some sliders.)
The slider-heavy strategy makes a lot of sense against Soler for a couple of reasons.