Compelled by conditioned behavior as strong as instinct, Dillon Maples picked up the baseball on the table and cycled adroitly through his pitch grips. Slider, four-seam, curve. Wash, rinse, repeat. It sounds mundane, but just getting a better feel for the baseball itself could play an integral role in Maples fully realizing his potential.
“You hear (Kyle) Hendricks talk, and Wade Davis was great as far as talking to him in the bullpen,” Maples shared with me during an interview at Cubs Convention. “Any time he started talking it was just [makes lip-zipping motion] zip it and kind of soak it in.