Lange set to pound zone, bounce back in '24

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Alex Lange walked into the clubhouse for the first workout of Spring Training on Wednesday with all smiles, saying hello, shaking hands. He greeted teammates, coaches, even reporters, then promptly did his first interview of camp, which began with what he spent his offseason working on.

“The emphasis was pretty glaring: Throw some more strikes, try to fill up the zone,” Lange said.

Consider that his first strike of the spring. If he can take that direct approach to the mound, he should be set up for a solid bounceback season. Lange has some of the nastiest stuff among baseball’s late-inning relievers, but he hamstrung his ability to use his arsenal to his full advantage.

“It's all about strikes with Alex,” manager A.J. Hinch said later. “If you look at the type of pitcher he is when he gets strike one vs. the type of pitcher when he falls behind, it's just a completely different level of impact. He's incredible when he gets strikes, and when he can get to two strikes, he's virtually unhittable. When he's not and he's putting on free baserunners, it's more and more of a challenge for him to use his pitches correctly.”

Lange’s 15.6% walk rate ranked among the worst for Major League pitchers, according to Statcast. Nearly every other metric had Lange ranked solidly in the top half, including the top one percent for whiff rate, top seven percent for expected slugging percentage, top 10 percent for expected batting average, top 15 percent for ground-ball rate and top 20 percent for chase rate.

Lange’s breaking ball remains one of the nastiest pitches in baseball, a low-spin buckler with a 48% whiff rate, a 30% putaway rate, a .178 opponents' batting average against and a plus-9 Run Value. But it was also hit for three home runs, second only to Pierce Johnson among relievers with curveballs in the ninth inning. The average launch angle off Lange’s curveball more than doubled from 4.6 degrees in 2022 to 11.5 last season, and the average exit velocity rose from 85.1 mph to 86.1 mph.

When Lange couldn’t locate his fastball, he had to rely on the breaking ball, and he couldn’t simply use it as a chase pitch and risk falling further behind in counts. Instead, hitters could wait for the breaking ball and launch it.

“When you're an opposing team and you face him, the first thing you're going to talk about is the strike throwing,” Hinch said. “So, naturally, it's the first thing we talked about to him in trying to prep him for how teams are going to attack him.”

That dichotomy factored into his offseason work.

“A little more [work on] four-seamers, really working on sinkers, making sure they're starting in the right tunnel, so when it does move, it's coming back [to the zone],” Lange said. “Just executing everything in any count. It's not rocket science. Go out there and execute and get guys out.”

Much of Lange's struggles results-wise came in two stretches. He had a 1.11 ERA, a 1.94 FIP, a .427 opponents' OPS and he did not allow a home run over his first 24 outings until June 4 at the White Sox. On that day, Lange issued back-to-back walks on 3-2 pitches to Yoán Moncada and Tim Anderson, setting up Jake Burger to crush a 1-0 breaking ball for a walk-off grand slam.

From that appearance through Aug. 7, a 22-outing stretch, Lange allowed 17 earned runs on 16 hits over 20 2/3 innings, with more walks (26) than strikeouts (25), four hit batters and just a 53% strike rate. He briefly moved out of save situations. Just when Lange seemed to turn a corner, he walked three batters in three consecutive outings to begin August, including an Aug. 7 outing in which he walked the bases loaded before hitting the Twins' Max Kepler with a pitch to force in a run in a 9-3 loss.

Lange was much improved in September, aside from a two-homer, three-run blown save against the Angels on Sept. 16. But he heads into this season looking to become a steadier presence at the back of the bullpen.

“You have to look back at the whole year,” Lange said. “We had some ups, we had some downs. I cost this team some wins. Just got to clean that up if we want to win this division. It was good work this offseason, and I'm excited to go out there and continue to work, but they all count for a reason.”