MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 If we\u2019ve learned anything through his first two big-league starts, it\u2019s that Connor Prielipp is in love with his slider.<\/p>\n
For the second outing in a row, the Minnesota Twins\u2019 top pitching prospect relied heavily on an elite off-speed pitch he considers his go-to. But this time out, Prielipp also trusted in his ability to throw a newly discovered curveball.<\/p>\n
Pairing both off-speed pitches paved the way for Prielipp\u2019s first big-league victory Monday night and showed once again why the Twins are excited about the young pitcher\u2019s future. Prielipp carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning and struck out five as the Twins snapped a five-game losing streak with an 11-4 victory over the Seattle Mariners at Target Field.<\/p>\n
Kody Clemens homered and drove in five runs and Trevor Larnach, Ryan Jeffers, Luke Keaschall and Tristan Gray each finished with two hits in support of Prielipp.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to go out and have the ability to throw a lot of different pitches,\u201d Jeffers, his catcher, said of Prielipp. \u201cThe best starters can do that. We hold those starters to high regards. We ask a lot of them. And we ask him to throw pitches in counts he might not have before. (Prielipp) has the ability to do so and he\u2019s showing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly every scouting report you can find on Prielipp mentions a hard slider he\u2019s thrown forever. A pitch that\u2019s generated swing-and-miss since his prep days in nearby Tomah, Wis., and the University of Alabama, the slider has been described by scouts and analysts as an elite offering.<\/p>\n
It shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise that Prielipp often relies on the slider, which he describes as his best pitch. He\u2019s demonstrated that trust twice now in the big leagues, throwing the slider 51 percent of the time against the New York Mets and using it 36 more times in 84 pitches against Seattle.<\/p>\n
But Monday night, Prielipp also showed off a curveball he\u2019s only been throwing since January in key spots. Knowing he needed more offerings to pitch deeper into games, Prielipp, finally healthy after two Tommy John surgeries, has worked hard the last year to add new wrinkles to his pitch mix.<\/p>\n
Last season, Prielipp, who was the team\u2019s minor-league pitcher of the year, began to work on a sinker. This season, he\u2019s added the curveball to keep hitters off-balance.<\/p>\n
Whereas the bulk of his repertoire is hard \u2014 his fastball averaged 94.8 mph against the Mariners and touched 97 in his debut \u2014 the average velocity of Prielipp\u2019s curveball is 82 mph, easily the slowest of his offerings. By comparison, Prielipp\u2019s changeup averaged 86 mph Monday.<\/p>\n
After ineffectively throwing the curve a handful of times last week in New York, Prielipp threw it six times against Seattle, including twice for swinging strikeouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did a better job with the curveball,\u201d Twins manager Derek Shelton said. \u201cThe Mets game, the curveball was basically nonexistent. I think he threw five and I don\u2019t know if he got four of them to the plate. Again, major-league debut. Today, the fact that he was able to come back, execute it. I think Jeffers did a really good job of incorporating it in. Because if it\u2019s just one breaking ball, then they\u2019re going to make adjustments on it. But the fact he was able to use the curveball was really, really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he looks back on the final pitch of his first major-league win, Prielipp will know it came on a curveball. Facing adversity for the first time all night, Prielipp once again showed poise under pressure.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t allow a hit through the game\u2019s first four innings, and with his offense banging away at Luis Castillo, Prielipp appeared in line for an easy victory.<\/p>\n
Then the Mariners started to break through.<\/p>\n
Prielipp started the fifth by issuing walks to Randy Arozarena and J.P. Crawford. Mitch Garver followed with an RBI single and Cole Young\u2019s sac fly made it a 7-2 game.<\/p>\n
With his pitch count climbing and Prielipp still building up his workload, the chances of Shelton having to pull the lefty before he qualified for a victory started to increase.<\/p>\n
But Prielipp buckled down. First he threw a steady diet of sliders to Leo Rivas, with a full-count offering generating a swing-and-miss that landed at the right-handed batter\u2019s feet. Then he got ahead of Rob Refsnyder with a changeup and two sliders before striking him out with a curve up and in.<\/p>\n
Prielipp had previously struck out Julio Rodr\u00edguez in the fourth inning on a curveball.<\/p>\n
Prielipp credited the additional trust in his curve and his changeup \u2014 a pitch he threw nine times \u2014 to extra work in this week\u2019s bullpen session.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The curve is) just a little bit slower than my slider and throws off their timing a bit for me,\u201d Prielipp said. \u201cI feel like they fell off my slider a lot tonight. To have that in my back pocket and show them the curve. \u2026 I knew what was at stake, and I was really excited to finish it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in the dugout, Shelton was thrilled he didn\u2019t have to yank Prielipp before he qualified for the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not want to have to go get him,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cOne of the things I was the most proud of was the fact he was able to finish it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The addition of the curveball only three months ago is more proof of why the Twins see Prielipp as an unfinished product. His five innings Monday gave him 138-plus innings pitched as a pro thanks to injuries that have stunted his workload.<\/p>\n
Last year, the plan was simply to get Prielipp innings, something he hadn\u2019t done in a pro career that began when he was picked in the second round of the 2022 draft. Now that he\u2019s starting to accrue innings and work on a more regular schedule, the Twins want to add new instruments to his pitch mix.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe curveball is just an absolute weapon,\u201d Jeffers said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure it makes the slider better. The slider is always a really good pitch. But I think having the curveball is just another weapon to add to what his arsenal is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 If we\u2019ve learned anything through his first two big-league starts, it\u2019s that Connor Prielipp is in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,2364,591,85],"class_list":["post-636020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}