How teammates helped Chris Sale make the adjustment to get back to ace form

“And it just showed just some little things, specifically with my arm angle being a little bit lower,” Sale said. “And then Schwelly and Holmes were looking at some of the stuff on the iPad in between starts on angle and spin stuff — some of the stuff that’s kind of over my head. But they’re really good with that stuff. It was just kind of everybody taking a look at what it was and what it is and kind of figuring out a place of where it needed to be. There was probably, at the very least, a handful of people that were in on this with my hand angle, with my arm angle and just kind of some of the newer technological things.”

There was Kranitz. And then, as Sale mentioned, Schwelly and Holmes — Spencer Schwellenbach and Grant Holmes — helped. This was a team effort to help Atlanta’s ace get back on track after some early-season struggles.

After his first five starts of the season, Sale had a 6.17 ERA. Over his past seven starts — including six scoreless innings against the Phillies on Thursday — Sale has a 1.42 ERA.

His season ERA, once at 6.75, is now 3.06. He looks like an ace again.

Two of the main aspects Sale had to fix to get here: His arm angle and release point were lower than last season, and his four-seam fastball wasn’t moving as well. The changes had to do with things like the spin direction of his pitches and even the placement of his spine when he pitches. As he made the adjustments, he had help from a number of folks, especially Schwellenbach and Holmes.

“Just his four-seam fastball looked just a little different metrically,” Schwellenbach said. “And for him, he doesn’t even look at any of that stuff, or he never did — he could be throwing the same pitch, same feeling, and it’s moving differently. So, I had asked him one day: ‘Hey, have you ever looked at your metrics from last year compared to this year, as far as spin axis, where your fastball is spinning at?’ And he’s like, ‘No, I never look at it.’”

Early in the season, Schwellenbach noticed many of Sale’s fastballs were not registering the same amount of vertical break — which creates ride and makes a fastball look like it’s rising up to a hitter — as last year.

“And so, in the bullpen, every heater he threw, he’d turn and look just at where he was spinning it,” Schwellenbach said. “And he got a bunch to 9:45 and to 10, and he could see, ‘OK, that’s staying true — that’s where it needs to be.’”

You might be thinking: What? 9:45? 10? Huh?

Let’s explain this in layman’s terms.

When Schwellenbach talked about the “axis” on which Sale’s fastball spun, he meant spin direction. True to the term, spin direction measures — on the axis of a clock — how the ball spins and where it goes. So, for example, a fastball that goes straight up would spin at 12 o’clock. Make sense?

In Sale’s bullpen sessions, he and others began to realize that spinning his fastball at 10 o’clock would yield the best results. The reason: This would give it enough backspin to still have ride to appear as if it were rising.

But to do this, Sale had to fix his release point and arm angle. With the help of technology, Sale saw his spine was tilted one way early in the season, which brought his release point lower. So instead of trying to raise his arm, which felt unnatural, he stayed a bit more upright when pitching, which naturally increased the height of his release point.

Before Sale made these changes, his fastball often spun more toward 9 o’clock, which meant it was a tad flatter. It spun more sideways — as opposed to sideways and up, diagonally — because he threw it from a lower arm slot and didn’t give it a chance to rise.

“I think it’s just getting him to understand the metrics,” Schwellenbach said. “Not really dive too deep into it, but just to understand it, so when something goes wrong, you have something to lean on. Guys like that who have pitched without any data and have succeeded without any data, they’re just like, ‘Ah, I don’t want to look at it.’ But sometimes when things are going poorly or you think something is just not moving the way it should be, that’s something you gotta be able to look at.”

Added Holmes: “We were down in the bullpen talking. I think it was more Schwelly than myself, but I kind of gave my two cents as well. I feel like he made that switch, and we kind of agreed with it. And, yeah, I feel like he’s come a long way with it.”

This entire situation highlights something cool about Sale: As accomplished as he is, he’s humble enough to accept help from those around him. He’s not too big, too famous or too seasoned for suggestions.

Sale, a great teammate by all accounts, is the fiercest competitor around. But don’t look beyond his humility because of that. He’s as hard on himself as anyone. He’s honest with himself. Thus, it would make sense that he would accept help from Schwellenbach and Holmes, who both debuted last season.

“I feel like he’s one of those guys that isn’t too big (to get) help from others,” Holmes said. “He’s just like us, you know — but, you know, just a lot better, I feel like. He’s a great teammate; he’s a good leader. He also listens whenever people have to chime in.”

On April 13 in Tampa, Sale allowed four runs — three earned — over 4⅓ innings against the Rays. After the game, he was classic Sale. He blamed himself for the loss. He gave himself no grace. He even went so far as to say he was the worst player on the field.

“Yeah. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this frustrated. Honestly,” Sale said that day. “I mean, I feel like I’m banging my head against the (expletive) wall right now and I’m getting nothing out of it.”

He seemed determined to revert to elite form — the form that made him the National League Cy Young Award winner last season. So, of course, he sought help from whoever could assist — especially because he isn’t as proficient in some of the technology as others around him. The point: It takes a village.

Sale worked and worked and worked. He desperately tried to make the adjustment.

“Yeah, I mean, that’s why this is a team game,” Sale said. “And that sometimes gets lost. You see us out there fighting together and playing together, but some of the in-between stuff — there were some weeks I was getting off the mound three times in between starts. There were some starts I wouldn’t even throw bullpens last year and even when I was younger. The repetition, I knew I needed to get kind of locked down. And then having some help from guys that can see things and use this technology to our advantage, and it obviously got me kind of back on track.”

Sale, who debuted in 2010 with the White Sox, is an eight-time All-Star. In addition to winning the NL Cy Young Award last season, he also earned a pitching triple crown by leading the NL in wins, ERA and strikeouts. He’s won a World Series — and got the final three outs to win it. He has a Gold Glove.

And he did all of this without using much technology. In this day and age, many pitchers dive into advanced metrics and use technology, whether it be force plates or something else.

Sale? He pitched more with feel than anything else.

His success with that approach, though, doesn’t surprise Schwellenbach. After all, Schwellenbach said, Sale always makes a point of how he never shakes off what the catcher calls.

“Just to have that much trust in whatever you throw, knowing it’s going to work — that’s not taught,” Schwellenbach said. “Just having conviction in every single pitch you throw, that means more than what your pitches actually do. But for him, I think getting back to where his pitches work the best — maybe he never even had to think about it the last however many years. It’s very interesting when you learn how other people used to pitch and how they didn’t have any metrics or data at all, and they just go out and shove. It’s definitely a different game now.”

The next time you see Sale spin a gem for the Braves, remember this: No matter how much success he’s experienced in this game, he’s never been above receiving help from others.

“There are 26 really good ballplayers in there, and none of them have figured this game out,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “You know what I mean? I’ve been with Hall of Famers, and they, every year, were looking for an edge and looking how to do something better. Nobody ever figures this game out. Your teammates, you can learn a lot from them. Most of the great ones that I’ve been around over my time, they’re never satisfied. They’re always looking for an edge. They’re always looking to get better, change something, add something — all of them. The Hall of Famers. All of them are always looking for how to get better in the game.”