Cincinnati Reds reliever Eduardo Salazar, a homegrown prospect who made his MLB debut on Wednesday, remembers the long afternoons in Chattanooga last season that he spent working on his sinker.
Salazar wasn’t having a good season in Double-A, and former Chattanooga Lookouts pitching coach Rob Wooten identified a sinker as a pitch that could help Salazar get to the big leagues. During batting practice, they worked in the outfield and in the bullpen on developing that pitch and adding it to Salazar’s repertoire. Wooten taught Salazar the pitch from scratch, and he helped the 25-year-old figure out how to become a better pitcher.