A deeper look at Shane Greene’s first two outings with Atlanta Braves

Greene in Detroit

First, let’s start in Detroit and see what made him so successful there this year.

I was shocked to see that his last save came back on June 29. He didn’t get a single save in the month of July with the Tigers.

However, he did blow two saves in July. And when you add that with his times with the Braves, he’s blown his last three save chances.

In that last save that he picked up on June 29, he pitched a perfect 1-2-3 inning against the Washington Nationals.

The first batter he faced was a lefty in Matt Adams. He started him out with a 93 MPH two-seam fastball dotted on the outside corner for a strike.

He then missed badly with a cutter running away from the lefty, but came back and got a swing-and-miss on that cutter up in the zone. Those cutters came in at 87 and 86 MPH respectively.

Greene then pushed Adams back with a 94 MPH fastball in and off the plate, and then got away with an 89 MPH cutter right down the middle that Adams popped up.

The next batter was Victor Robles. He missed with a two-seamer in, but then painted a cutter on the inside corner.

His next pitch was a cutter at the top of the zone that was called a ball, but looked like a strike on the K-zone box.

He then got away with a two-seamer right down the middle at 93 that Robles fouled off. Greene finished him off with an 82 MPH slider that ran off the plate, making Robles whiff for the strikeout.

Next he would face Atlanta Braves nemesis, Trea Turner. He blew a fastball by him at 94 up-and-away (in the zone) and then got him to swing at a devastating slider that had more downward action (the first one he threw broke away from the right-handed hitter).

Turner fouled off a fastball up the zone (same pitch as the first one of the at-bat), and then Greene got him to swing-and-miss at that slider breaking down again.

I also watched his last outing with the Tigers on July 29 when he came in to finish off a 7-2 win, so it wasn’t exactly a pressure situation. But that’s also when closers sometimes lose focus.

It was pretty much the same. He mainly threw the two-seamer and cutter with the slider sprinkled in.

He really only threw one or two mistake pitches over the plate. Albert Pujols popped up one of those pitches, and Luis Rengifo swung threw a cutter over the heart of the plate to end the game.

Based on those two viewings, it looks like Greene tries to work ahead with that two-seamer, trying to paint it on the corners.

To me, he was very inconsistent with the cutter. Sometimes it broke down hard, and other times it looked more like a change-up and was just very straight.

I thought the slider was his most effective off-speed pitch as it had a lot of downward movement and moved away from right-handed hitters.