Jordan Montgomery has taken off since being traded by the Yankees, pitching to a 1.45 ERA in 43.1 innings as a Cardinal, a span of seven starts.
That included five shutout innings in his first start with St. Louis, which came against his former team, which has been struggling badly since trading him.
But what has changed for Montgomery that he has been so improved? The lefty appeared on the R2C2 podcast on Thursday and said the implementation of his fastball has made all the difference, something he was discouraged to use when he was in New York.
“I didn’t really have much faith in my heater with the Yankees,” Montgomery said. “I’d been told it wasn’t that good compared to my other pitches, and if I was gonna get hit, it was gonna be on a curveball or changeup, which isn’t how you can pitch. If I got two strikes on a guy, he was probably auto-taking, because I was gonna throw a curveball or changeup. He was either fouling off a changeup or see a curveball down. I’m throwing my fastball in two-strike counts, I’m throwing anything in any count now. It’s definitely opened up.”
Montgomery said he spoke about to the Yankees about using his fastball more, but he was never able to use it frequently enough to where he was able to find efficiency with it as a putaway pitch.
“Oh, absolutely, but then I would miss a spot and give up a homer because I never threw my four seamer in, so there was no consistent feel of it,” Montgomery said. “It would leak middle or I just wouldn’t have any confidence in it. I’m thinking ‘I’m throwing this to not get hit instead of throwing it to blow your doors off.’ Now it’s a whole new aggressive mindset where I’m the guy, I’m a dog on the mound, and I’m coming after everybody.”
The difference is striking. In his last two months as a Yankee, Montgomery threw his fastball five percent of the time. In his six weeks as a Cardinal, he is throwing it nearly 32 percent of the time, and it has opened up an entirely new plan of attack.
Still, Montgomery doesn’t have any hard feelings towards the Yanks, but he certainly seems content in St. Louis, and more free to pitch how he feels will bring him the best results.
“The pinstripes are heavy,” Montgomery said. “Not everyone can handle it. I feel like I handled it OK. I could have been better, but there were a lot of things going into that I guess. Here, I’m just being myself and pitching the way I want to.
“The Yankees were good to me for seven years. I’m not gonna say anything bad about them. I always thought I was gonna be a Yankee lifer. When you come up homegrown, they take care of you…I thought I was gonna be there forever or at least a few more years.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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