Lakeland, Fla. — Matt Manning sat in front his locker last week and basically gave a preview of how his first Grapefruit League start would go.
“I’m kind of taking a different approach,” he said. “I’m just trying to ramp up in spring, where I don’t necessarily have my A-stuff all spring, but I can develop it and get stronger, so I’m peaking at the right time.”
Understand where he’s coming from. In 2021 and 2022, Manning came to camp loaded for bear. He was throwing bullets in live batting practice and treating spring outings like regular-season starts.
“Yeah, I was bringing it from Day One and that stuff can hurt you,” he said. “Instead of having six or seven months of my best stuff, you’re adding two more months onto that.”
Manning has yet to have a full season in the big leagues. Last year, he was shut down twice, the last time for the rest of the season on Sept. 28 when he felt soreness in his biceps as he was warming up for his start.
He didn’t pick up a baseball until January after he got full clearances from both the Tigers’ medical team as well as specialist Dr. Keith Meister. And he didn’t make his first spring start until Wednesday — when the calendar turned to March.
So, yeah, he’s doing it differently this year. His fastball velocity in the Tigers 8-7 walk-off spring win against the Pirates topped out at 90 mph, 3 mph under his season average last year. But, he deftly mixed in an improved curveball with his slider and changeup and gave up a run on three hits (one a double on a ball left fielder Kerry Carpenter lost in the high sky) in his two innings.
“It’s a little bit about being in buildup mode,” he said. “But, today it was really important for me to fill up the zone.”
Manning said his velocity has been higher in his live bullpens, but he was spraying pitches. He was erratic. He threw 22 pitches Wednesday, including 16 strikes.
“I just want to put everything together,” he said. “Today, just going two innings, I wanted to fill up the zone and be under control and not really push my body to the absolute limit. I didn’t want to do anything I’m not ready for.”
Makes sense on a physical level and it makes sense in terms of Manning’s maturation on the mound. He threw his fastball 51% of the time last season. He has an exceptional one. Even at 93 mph (he was mid-to-upper 90s coming up through the minor leagues). His 6.9 feet of extension is in the top 7 percentile in baseball.
He limited hitters to a .198 batting average with it last year.
But, throwing it more than half the time isn’t conducive to sustained success against big-league hitters.
“A big thing for me is to have a good mix and not rely too heavily on my fastball,” Manning said. “If I have everything working, I can keep the hitters off-balance.”
Last year, he changed the grip on his slider with great success, but his curveball and changeup were spotty. Against the Pirates, he threw five curveballs, four changeups and two sliders.
Here’s a pitch sequence you didn’t see much from Manning last season. Against left-handed-hitting Ji Hwan Bae, he threw four-seam, changeup, four-seam, changeup, four-seam and, on 3-2, a curveball. Swinging strike three.
“I’ve been working on my curveball a lot,” he said. “I’ve been talking to a lot of guys to see how they grip theirs,” he said. “My slider and my curveball have been very different metric-wise and being able to use those two a good amount is going to be big.”
Manning said he’s talked to Spencer Turnbull and Michael Lorenzen, among others. The key is for the slider and curve to be distinctly different pitches.
“Yeah, once I found that new grip on the slider (last season), I got more horizontal movement where it goes kind of flat,” he said. “The curveball has more depth. On the Trackman, the numbers are very, very different.”
Manager AJ Hinch liked what he saw.
“He’s working on a few things with his delivery and with his lower half,” Hinch said. “The velocity is the last thing we’re going to worry about. We’re trying to get him to hold his legs a little (stay back on the mound before coming to the plate). He will get his body moving fast enough as spring training progresses.
“All in all, for a first outing and the fact that we pushed him back into March, it was pretty good.”
The day ended happily for the Tigers, too.
Nick Maton, who made a couple of superb plays at shortstop, blasted a first-pitch fastball (95.6 mph) from Pirates right-handed Osvaldo Bido over the fence in right with one out in the bottom of the ninth.
Apparently, Bido didn’t get the memo. Maton crushes fastballs, particularly from right-handed pitchers.
“I guess not,” Maton said, with a smile. “It feels good to just see pitches. You want to do good in the games but it’s mainly getting ready for the season and seeing pitches. But, it’s good to see my strength is still in effect.”
Catcher Eric Haase hit his second homer of the spring, a 426-footer that hit off the scaffolding to the left of the batter’s eye in dead center. The ball left his bat with an exit velocity of 107 mph.
Tyler Nevin, fighting for one of the final position-player spots, hit an 84-mph slider 429 feet onto the berm in left-center. That ball left his bat at 111 mph. Miguel Cabrera, who was called for a pitch-clock violation in his first at-bat, just missed a homer — his long fly ball bouncing off the top of the wall in left-center for a double.
Cabrera was acknowledging the cheers when stepped up to bat in the third inning and home plate umpire Roberto Ortiz rang him up for not getting into the box within eight seconds.
“He told me he forgot we had a timer,” Hinch said. “The music was going. The first few crowds have really celebrated him when he’s come up to bat. I think he looked down and never looked up. A 20-year veteran with Hall of Fame credentials, I think he gets a pass.”
Twitter: @cmccosky