Shane Drohan Will Go as Far as His Slider Does

After he allowed a season-high six earned runs against the Minnesota Twins in his last start, Shane Drohan knew what went wrong.

"I was just too low with the slider," he said postgame.

Drohan's tight gyro slider is his best pitch. FanGraphs's Stuff+ model grades it as his most dominant pitch (108 Stuff+), and big-league hitters have managed just a .215 xwOBA against it (with a 41.6% whiff rate) this year.

It wasn't a useful part of his arsenal last Friday, however, because he was not nearly competitive enough with it. Sliders are usually more of a chase pitch than an in-zone pitch, because their late break occurs after the hitter has already decided to swing. But to force those chases, the slider must start in or near the bottom of the zone. Drohan wasn't doing that against the Twins. Just a quarter of his sliders were in the zone, and most of them bounced in the dirt well shy of home plate.

"I was just throwing it too low," Drohan said. "It could be a couple inches higher, so out of hand it's looking like that fastball at the bottom of the zone."

The Twins made him pay. Because those sliders were nowhere close, they could effectively eliminate swinging at anything around the bottom of the zone. That allowed them to focus on the top of the zone, where Drohan likes to attack with his fastballs. Of the nine hits he allowed, eight came on fastballs, and five came on heaters at or above the belt.

Drohan wasn't hit as hard as his line indicated. His average exit velocity against was 78.6 mph, and only six of 18 batted balls (33.3%) were hit 95 mph or above. If anything, that's a testament to how deceptive his fastballs can be. However, those deceptive heaters usually induce plenty of swings and misses around the top of the zone. The Twins only whiffed twice each at Drohan's four-seamer and cutter. Eliminating the slider was the difference between a whiff and contact that could find the outfield grass, even if it wasn't hit hard.

"They eliminated down, and the breaking ball didn't come into play," Pat Murphy said. "His slider did not come into play much, and that's been key for him."

The issues with the slider have become a recurring problem for Drohan over his past few starts. Before his Twins start, he bounced plenty of uncompetitive sliders in Anaheim, but he threw enough at the bottom of the zone to work six solid innings with seven strikeouts. He even induced chases on some of those bad misses against a poor Los Angeles Angels lineup.

A better offense made him pay his next time out.

"They hit them hard," Murphy said. "You give up 10 hits, or whatever you gave up, that's unusual. A couple homers. He missed some spots."

On the whole, Drohan is still authoring a productive rookie season. His 3.87 ERA is still above average, and his 3.50 xERA and 3.34 FIP are both a touch lower. He's one of the reasons Milwaukee's pitching staff has kept chugging along amid injuries and workload management measures.

"He's throwing the ball great for us," Murphy said. "Let's not act like he hasn't been good. If you had to pick four guys from the July time frame, this guy would be one of the four in everybody's ballot who have put us in this position."

As October nears, though, the Brewers will have to decide whether Drohan fits best as a back-of-the-rotation starter or a multi-inning reliever who can pitch in high-leverage situations. He has the arsenal and poise for either role and has shown flashes in both. To be the productive starter version, Drohan needs to get his slider closer to the plate more consistently.

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