Tahnaj Thomas: Refocus On Slider Leading To Better Results

ALTOONA, Pa. – Tahnaj Thomas was always going to have an uphill mountain to climb, making the switch from a position player to pitcher when he turned pro.

He had the raw tools, which included the ability to hit triple-digits at times. It was a matter of learning to pitch and harnessing that fastball.

Over the last two years, there’s been a lot of fine tuning to Thomas’ game to get his command under control. That included dialing back his fastball, he added a hesitation/leg kick last year, and recently the Pirates shifted him to the bullpen for the 2022 season.

While throwing in the upper-90s works really well out the bullpen, Thomas was going to need to improve on his other pitches if he wanted to have continued success, especially since he has dialed back the fastball velocity.

That’s where Thomas’ slider comes into play. While it’s a decent pitch, he wasn’t getting enough hitters to chase with it, which is huge when pairing it with the fastball. Thomas identified the problem with the pitch as not being able to throw it for strikes enough.

“In the past, when I wasn’t throwing it as much for strikes, I didn’t get much chase on it.” Thomas told Pirates Prospects.

The righty had a good month of April that saw him strike out 24.1% of the batters he faced, but the same control issues lingered (13.8 BB%) that led to a 4.91 FIP despite holding opponents to an .080 average and 1.23 ERA.

Everything unfolded in May, as Thomas walked more than he struck out and posted a 10.29 ERA.

Since then, Thomas has been one of the better relievers in a loaded Altoona bullpen, and a large part of that is being able to throw the slider for strikes, especially early in the count.

“Now that I can throw it for strikes and throw strike to ball, whenever I want to, I think that’s a big play in it,” Thomas said. “I can get ahead with the secondary pitches is a plus for me on the mound.”

We’ve seen that from Thomas this season, especially since June. He didn’t allow an earned run in the month of July and has a 1.93 ERA in August. Putting up some of the video on Thomas reinforces what he was talking about when it comes to being able to throw the pitch for strikes.

In the first clip Thomas struck out the batter in three pitches, starting off with a fastball, and finished him off with a slider that broke in on the corner for a called strike three. That’s followed up with three consecutive sliders, one a called strike and the others swinging, to pick up another quick strikeout.

The third clip shows getting more chases with the slider, two in fact, and another near swing and miss on a check swing for strike two. In between is a strikeout that Thomas got to end an inning on a full count. The pitch was swung and missed at, but the pitch would have been a strike regardless.

With the final full at-bat of the video, Thomas starts off the batter with a slider for a called strike one, before getting him reaching for another two pitches later and popping out.

The rest of the video shows some swings and misses and called strikes Thomas got with the slider over his last two appearances against Bowie.

Thomas himself recognized the possibilities that open up being able to throw the slider for strikes, and you saw it mixed in throughout the videos.

“Now that I can throw my breaking ball for strikes, it’s a pitch I can use whenever — behind in the count, ahead in the count, early in the count,” said Thomas. “I feel like it’s definitely a pitch I’ve used more often now.”

There were a lot of encouraging things to see over the last couple months. Maybe the most is that he’s constantly throwing strikes. Trying to find occasions where he was behind on a constant basis were few and far between, and the results usually showed that he was playing with fire.

Having confidence in multiple pitches, especially in a bullpen role, can be huge for young pitchers. For Thomas, it also seemed to be more of a change in the mindset in how he treated the slider.

“I’m using that pitch more often now than I was in the past.” He said. “I think in the past, for me and my mindset, it was a strikeout pitch, so I was kind of using it for a strikeout pitch.”

That change in approach not only has Thomas striking out a tad more than he did a year ago in Greensboro, but also walking less, which is really what has been the biggest hurdle for him over the years.