Heck's Bells

In this young season opponents are hitting .368/.400/1.053 against Trevor Hoffman. It's obviously a small sample size, but when you don't throw hard you can go downhill pretty fast. Most troubling it that the gap between his fastball and change seems to be getting smaller despite the fact that he has picked up 1-2 mph on his fastball.

Last night his fastball was clocking in at 86, give or take a mph, and his change was consistently at 81, and sometimes jumped up to 82. I've always been told that you want something in the neighborhood of a 7 mph difference between the two, and I would assume that this becomes more important if you're not a fireballer.

Hoffman only threw his change a few times last night and relied primarily on his fastball. That's not going to work. If his changeup is off he probably shouldn't pitch.