Ian Hamilton, who signed a minor league deal with the Yankees this offseason, made his pinstried debut on Monday night, and had a chance to show off his unique pitch that was given a unique name by Aaron Boone.
The slambio.
“It’s a combination between a slider and a change, or a cambio,” Boone said. “Slambio!”
Pitching in the seventh inning with the Yankees holding a comfortable 8-1 lead, Hamilton broke out the slambio on a 3-2 pitch to strike out Kyle Schwarber swinging.
Hamilton hasn’t had many chances to display the slambio, as he has pitched in just 16 games over four scattered big-league seasons since 2018. Last season, he pitched in just one game for the Twins, and is looking to find more consistent opportunities.
He will likely get more if the slambio performs like it did against Schwarber on Monday, as it has certainly caught the eye of Boone and the Yankees' staff.
“In spring training we were trying to name the pitch," Boone said on Talkin' Yanks. "It pops up on the board like a slider but he throws it like a changeup. So, in his mind, it’s a changeup. It’s got the characteristics of both but it has and acts a little bit like a slider. So we blended the two names there.
“The way it started, was David Grabner [the team's director of quantitative anlaytics] in our front office said — cause we were trying to name it for PitchCom. Like, what do we call this? Is it a slider? Is it a changeup? We’re talking to Hamilton about it, what should we call it? — and David Grabner said, ‘Well, it’s really weird and it’s really good.’ I said, ‘can we put that? Let’s just call it really weird and really good.’ That weird pitch. Then we settled on ‘slambio’ I think. I think we got a little peak of it last night. It’s a unique pitch.”
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