On Sunday afternoon against the Baltimore Orioles, Yordano Ventura threw 96 pitches and the hardest pitch he threw was a 97 mph fastball. So what happened to Ventura’s triple-digit heater?
Well, funny you should ask. (Actually, you didn’t, but for rhetorical purposes, let’s pretend you did.)
Royals manager Ned Yost talked Sunday morning about Ventura’s secondary pitches and how Ventura had to learn to back off on them if he was going to control them. You can power a fastball, but it doesn’t work the same way on a curve or a changeup; those pitches require touch and feel, not brute force.