Kenta Maeda is struggling and the Dodgers are searching for an answer, and feeling inspired by Brim’s post about Hyun-Jin Ryu‘s problematic fastball, I decided to look at Maeda’s struggles with the pitch as well.
Velocity doesn’t seem to be the issue here, as his fastball is actually up to 91.3 mph compared to 90.0 mph in 2016. In fact, Dave Roberts speculates that the uptick in velocity is the whole problem.
The key difference, in Roberts’ mind, is Maeda attempting to generate extra velocity on his fastball.