For O's Fans

Gunslinger!

I'd missed this entry on Jeremy Guthrie by Sickels last month. I wouldn't be doing my baseball civic duty if Leo Mazzone wasn't mentioned at least once in a post regarding a successful Oriole pitcher. Therefore, I like this comment in particular by Uncle Charlie,

Mazzone doesn't usually take lousy pitchers with poor stuff and make them good. He takes decent, or above-average pitchers with one problem--wild command, over-thinking, etc.--and gets them back to basics, allowing their talent to shine through. I've always found it pretty funny that one of the best pitching coaches of this era spends most of his simply undoing years of coaching and getting pitchers back to what they're comfortable with. Mazzone's two mantras are "keep it simple" and "establish the outside corner."