Texas Rangers: Jon Gray on his new slider and mentality

ARLINGTON, Texas — Jon Gray reacquainted himself with his former Colorado Rockies teammates on Monday morning before the Rockies and his new team, the Texas Rangers, squared off in the home opener of the 2022 campaign at Globe Life Field.

Plenty has changed for the 30-year-old Gray since he signed a four-year, $56 million deal with the Texas Rangers this offseason. Along with the change in uniform, home field, and division, Gray is also tinkering with a pitch that served him well during his eight seasons in Colorado: The slider.

How Jon Gray is changing his slider during his time with the Texas Rangers

According to Baseball Savant, Gray threw his slider 19 percent of the time during his MLB debut season of 2015, when he pitched 40.2 innings. That percentage more than doubled to 38.1 percent last season when the right-hander went 8-12 with a 4.59 ERA and was surprisingly not traded at the trade deadline as the Rockies languished in fourth place in the National League West.

Against Gray’s slider last season, opponents hit just .156.

Gray took his talents (including his slider) to Texas in the offseason, and Gray has been working on refining his wipeout pitch under the guidance of the Rangers coaching staff.

“I’d say it’s just more of like a true slider, not so much like a hard cutter,” Gray said on Monday inside Globe Life Field. “I’m just trying to really work on the break and trying to limit the amount of foul balls guys get. I feel like I want to be so fine with it. It has a little more movement

“It’s really come a long ways, but I still feel like it’s going to get a lot better.”

See if you can notice any difference from his time in Colorado above to his one start in Toronto below.

Would Gray have used this same slider if he was still with the Rockies?

“It was something that I was always just looking for a way to improve my old one (slider),” Gray said. “But this kind of feels like a totally different pitch. It was really effective during spring training. I wanted to really trust in it and throw it a lot then and it was good. So I’m looking for the feel for it to get a lot better and just get better all around.”

How is Gray adjusting to life after having to pitch at altitude in Denver at Coors Field, where the ball often performs differently for a pitcher than it does at sea level? Gray said the mentality he learned at a mile high with the Rockies is still paying off for him in Texas.

“Now I feel like I’m trying to treat everything like I was at Coors,” Gray explained. “I think that’s why I was better there because I was able to pitch more aggressive and pitch in the zone. I would go right at people. And I feel like, on the road, I was kind of a ball thrower. So it’s something I kind of want to combine. I really want to take that aggressive mentality that I pitched with at Coors here.”

Gray is currently on the 10-day injured list with a blister on his right middle finger he developed during his start in Toronto. However, once he returns, the movement on his slider and his aggressiveness on the mound will be something for Rangers fans to monitor.