McCullers Jr.'s curveball, Alcantara's sinker, Peralta's four-seam, and buying low on Strider
Corbin Young examines Lance McCullers Jr., Sandy Alcantara, Freddy Peralta, and Spencer Strider from Tuesday's outings.
Lance McCullers Jr. threw six scoreless innings against the Pirates, and he weirdly had ZERO whiffs via the curveball. The Pirates were patient, letting the curveball come in for called strikes, with a 17% zone swing rate against the curve. For context, hitters swung in the zone 54% of the time against the curveball in 2025 and 61.6% in 2022.
McCullers Jr. filled the zone with sinkers and sliders, with the sliders and curveballs low and away from right-handed hitters. Typically, McCullers Jr. throws the slider in the zone around 45% of the time, so it might've been a matchup-based approach against the Pirates to see if they can hit his stuff. Look out for a deeper look at McCullers Jr. in one of my weekly articles this week.
Sandy Alcantara had a weirdly efficient outing with a quality start against the road Rockies, with 70 pitches?! Alcantara's control still hasn't been there with a 37% ball rate and an okay 11.4% SwK.
Alcantara lived on throwing the sinker in the zone 74% of the time, and allowing the Rockies' hitters to put the ball in play. For context, he threw the sinker in the zone 64.5% of the time in 2025, and that would be a career-high rate if it maintains. Alcantara's sinker has been decent, mainly against RHH with a .275 wOBA (.294 xwOBA) and a 60.7% GB%. I'll have a deeper dive coming out this week.
After lowering the four-seam usage against both sides of the plate, Freddy Peralta has been throwing more heaters to left- and right-handed hitters. Peralta continued that trend against the Reds, with the four-seam gaining over 1 mph in velocity.
Peralta's four-seam movement didn't change with the slight velocity bump. He continued to excel with the four-seamers in the upper third, leading to whiffs and weak contact. Peralta's four-seam elicited a 21.5% SwK on Tuesday compared to a season-long average under 10% (9.6%).
Though Peralta's curveball didn't generate any whiffs or called strikes, it's been a sneaky good one with a 16% SwK in 2025. His curveball usage increased to right- and left-handed hitters in 2025. That coincided with more whiffs, but some contact quality issues against RHH. The curveball adds depth to his arsenal. I'll have a deeper look at him in an upcoming weekly article.
Spencer Strider maintained a vertical release over two inches lower and a horizontal release point two inches closer to his midline compared to 2024. That led to a lower arm angle, dropping by four degrees. Strider's horizontal release point has notably moved over five inches closer to his midline when compared to the 2023 data.
With the arm angle change, we've seen Strider's slider vertical and horizontal movement profile shift closer to 2023, possibly leading to better results soon. Strider's slider elicited a 26.7% SwK on Tuesday against the Diamondbacks, nearly identical to his career average (26.6% SwK), and over eight percentage points above his 2025 numbers.
In the early 2025 sample, Strider's four-seamer and changeup haven't been generating many whiffs versus his peak 2023 season. It's worth attempting to buy low on Strider because some of the pitch movement profiles, locations, and whiffs are coming, especially via the slider.