Ty France walked away from the batter’s box Tuesday night, frustrated and shocked.
But there was also this thought: “It’s what you ask for in baseball, right? Bottom of the ninth, tying run, (facing) one of the best closers in baseball. It was fun.”
The morning after one of the more intense game-ending battles that could happen — with Padres closer Josh Hader ultimately securing a 2-0 victory by striking out France with a runner on first base — the two combatants spoke about their standoff at T-Mobile Park.
Hader finished off the 10-pitch row with France with a pitch no one was expecting.
“I’ll be honest,” France said. “I don’t even know if we covered the changeup in the (pregame hitters’) meeting.”
Why would the Mariners have thought Hader would throw a changeup? He had done so twice before in 215 pitches with the Padres and 18 times all season, a 2-percent rate.
But Tuesday night, he was nine pitches in against the tenacious France and feeling like there was no choice.
“I couldn’t really throw anything else,” Hader said. “I mean, he had a really good at-bat.”
With Julio Rodriguez on first base, France swatted foul a 2-2 sinker at 98 mph that was in off the plate. Then he fouled off a 98 mph sinker on the outer third, a 97 mph sinker up and on the inside edge, a 98 mph sinker at the top of the zone and a slider that broke in on him off the plate.
“He’s seen everything that I knew I could throw,” Hader said.
So when Austin Nola made the call for a changeup, Hader was in.
“That was all the confidence I needed,” Hader said. “It’s not a pitch that I’ll shake to most times, but when I’ve got the trust of the catcher calling that pitch, that’s a confidence boost.”
The changeup, at 89 mph, started belt high and dipped as it reached the plate. France swung over it as the bat fell a little short of the target as well with a swing that seemed ready for a slider to break in on him from the left-handed Hader.
“Josh has been working on it,” Nola said after the game. “That’s a good pitch for him. … He always keeps it in his back pocket. He executed a heck of a pitch right there in a big moment, so credit to him.”
Hader said he recently changed his grip on the changeup and considers it a “plus” pitch. But he throws upward of 98 mph most of the time with a slider that bites.
“It’s more of you don’t want to get beat with your third-best pitch,” Hader said. “But at that time, the battle that we had, that was the only pitch that we could have thrown that didn’t have to be perfect. Like if I threw another fastball, I had to be perfect with the location because he’s on it. So if I miss in the middle of the zone, he might have a chance to put a barrel on it. I throw a slider and I bury it, maybe he doesn’t swing. So weighing the odds out on that pitch, it was the right move.”
Now it has to be in opponents’ minds.
“It builds more confidence in that pitch for me, that now maybe I may use it more in situations where it may arise,” Hader said. “It’s getting that confidence just to be able to use it.”
That doesn’t mean we’ll see it next time he pitches or even the time after that. The timing still has to be right for a reliever to favor his third offering. Timing like Tuesday night.
“It was a battle,” Hader said. “When you win a battle like that, it’s rewarding. You’ve got the best hitters in the league and you want to get them out as much as possible. But when you throw the kitchen sink at him, and he’s still tipping them off, sometimes you gotta go to the well.”
France, the San Diego State alumnus who was traded by the Padres in a seven-player deal in 2020 that brought Nola to San Diego, shrugged at one point Wednesday morning.
“It was a good at-bat,” he said. “It was a good battle on both ends. He came out on top.”
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism