Sean Doolittle told MLB.com’s Matt Kelly last April that his tendency to throw fastballs up in the zone wasn’t a reaction to the trend towards uppercut swings, but a continuation of the approach he’s had since he entered the big leagues.
“It’s how I’ve always thrown it,” Doolittle explained.
“I came into the league doing that. At the time, I didn’t have a great secondary pitch. So the way I would get hitters to chase out of the zone was by climbing the ladder.”
It used to be effective because hitters were trying to get on top of the ball a few years back, he said, but with the launch angle thing catching on, “you climb the ladder because they’re trying to hit under the ball and hit it up into the air.