The Pirates used two of their longer relief options last night with Wilber Dotel and Antwone Kelly covering the final four innings after Braxton Ashcraft had to toss 90 pitches to cover his five innings.
That necessitated Isaac Mattson's recall, according to Don Kelly.
"Really right now in the bullpen we don't have a lot of coverage,” he said.
In nine appearances for Class AAA Indianapolis, Mattson tossed 9 2/3 innings, allowing two earned runs on eight hits, six walks, and 11 strikeouts.
Mattson went down to Indianapolis to work on his additional pitches beyond relying on his fastball, which might explain the six walks.
"The way that I was attacking guys for the last year was having success. The approach was attack with my best weapon," Mattson said. "I liken it to a golf outing. You can use your driver on every shot if you want, but there’s situations where a 9-iron or a putter is going to work better in that spot, depending on who you’re facing. That was the adjustment: How do I spread the deck and use everything that I have at my disposal – the slider, the changeup – to be able to level things out and compete at a higher level."
Mattson called on his experience witnessing David Bednar having to do something similar last year: “Nobody’s excited to get sent down but seeing (Bednar) go through what he went through last year and how he was a professional through and through in the midst of something that everybody knew he didn’t want to be there but he understood what it was going to take to get back to the big leagues. To his credit, he took those steps. Being able to see that last year really fed into my mindset in trying to be the best version of myself.”
Don Kelly didn't want to go into specifics about the adjustments Mattson had to make but he said, "He's done a much better job of executing the things that he went down to do."
THE ASYLUM
Mattson worked to expand arsenal
The Pirates used two of their longer relief options last night with Wilber Dotel and Antwone Kelly covering the final four innings after Braxton Ashcraft had to toss 90 pitches to cover his five innings.
That necessitated Isaac Mattson's recall, according to Don Kelly.
"Really right now in the bullpen we don't have a lot of coverage,” he said.
In nine appearances for Class AAA Indianapolis, Mattson tossed 9 2/3 innings, allowing two earned runs on eight hits, six walks, and 11 strikeouts.
Mattson went down to Indianapolis to work on his additional pitches beyond relying on his fastball, which might explain the six walks.
"The way that I was attacking guys for the last year was having success. The approach was attack with my best weapon," Mattson said. "I liken it to a golf outing. You can use your driver on every shot if you want, but there’s situations where a 9-iron or a putter is going to work better in that spot, depending on who you’re facing. That was the adjustment: How do I spread the deck and use everything that I have at my disposal – the slider, the changeup – to be able to level things out and compete at a higher level."
Mattson called on his experience witnessing David Bednar having to do something similar last year: “Nobody’s excited to get sent down but seeing (Bednar) go through what he went through last year and how he was a professional through and through in the midst of something that everybody knew he didn’t want to be there but he understood what it was going to take to get back to the big leagues. To his credit, he took those steps. Being able to see that last year really fed into my mindset in trying to be the best version of myself.”
Don Kelly didn't want to go into specifics about the adjustments Mattson had to make but he said, "He's done a much better job of executing the things that he went down to do."
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