SEATTLE — New Red Sox pitcher Chase Anderson still throws the same changeup with the same grip he learned at 13 years old.
“I haven’t changed anything. Nothing,” Anderson said before Boston’s 5-1 win over Seattle at T-Mobile Park on Sunday. “So Josh Bobbitt: shout-out to you, man. You taught me that changeup and it’s helped me a lot.”
Anderson’s late father Robert Anderson worked with Josh Bobbitt’s dad Hal at a fiberglass plant in Wichita Falls, Texas. Josh played at Tulane and spent the 1998 season pitching in the Rangers minor league system. He gave Anderson pitching lessons after their fathers connected them.
The changeup has been Anderson’s best pitch throughout his 10 seasons in the major leagues. Opponents have gone just 196-for-998 (.196 batting average) against it.
“I’m a guy that doesn’t throw upper-90s,” Anderson said. “But low-to-mid 90s with a good changeup makes the fastball play. You can throw the fastball around the zone when you have good command of an offspeed pitch. And they’ll go chase that pitch because they’re looking for something in the zone and the fastball sinks by them. So it really makes my fastball better. And there have been games throughout my career where I’ve pitched with that pitch mainly and used the fastball sporadically.”
