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Isaiah4110
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Are you kidding me? Excerpt from an article on the A's website:
Here's the full article: Sonny Gray making third straight Opening Day
Vogt was behind the plate last May when Gray fanned nine batters in six innings. Seemingly nothing about this is particularly remarkable in the context of the 26-year-old Gray's career, except when considering the fact that two of the strikeouts were achieved with a cutter.
Gray doesn't throw a cutter.
"His curveball and slider weren't working," Vogt recalled, "so he said to me, 'Hey, I'm going to throw a cutter.' I'm like, 'Sonny, you've never thrown a cutter before.'
"And this is in the middle of a game, and he told me, 'I'll just throw one in warmups and see how it goes.'
"Of course it was a pretty good cutter."
After Mariners outfielder Nelson Cruz singled off Gray to open the bottom half of the sixth inning, the right-hander pulled out his newest toy, void of a warning label, and sent it past a frozen Kyle Seager for a third strike call. Logan Morrison could only stare at it, too, for another looking strikeout.
Cruz never budged. Gray struck out the side.
"Looking, on back-to-back backdoor cutters?" Vogt said, still in disbelief nearly a year later. "C'mon. That's a pitch that takes pitchers years to learn and to control, and Sonny, in a big situation, punched out two very good left-handed hitters looking with it.
"They both turned around and said, 'When did he start throwing that?' I said, 'Right now, this inning.' They just shook their heads and walked away."
Here's the full article: Sonny Gray making third straight Opening Day