Quick-pitching Hellickson finding early spring success

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Pitching is about disrupting a hitter's timing, which traditionally is done via the changing of pitch speeds. But it can't hurt to try changing the speed of the actual delivery to the plate, which is exactly what Jeremy Hellickson is up to this spring.

Owner of a fastball that tops out at 90 mph, the Nationals right-hander knows he needs to find some other methods for keeping a hitter off-balance. So he's been tinkering around with a quick-pitch the last few weeks, cutting down on his full leg kick and using something of a slide-step even when pitching out of the full windup.

And the results so far have been quite encouraging, particularly during today's four-inning start against the Astros in which Hellickson scattered three hits and a walk without letting a run cross the plate.

"It felt good," he said afterward. "I feel in control of it. I don't feel like I'm rushing when I do it. So I'm pretty happy with how it's going."

Hellickson made a point today to try out the quick delivery on all of his pitches, including off-speed offerings. He said there's no single reason behind his decision to utilize it on any given pitch, aside from occasional hunches he gets based on hitters' reactions.

"I don't know if there's a method to it," he said. "I'll try to read a swing, and if I need to mess with the timing a little bit with the quick pitch ... I don't really know when I'm going to do it 'til he puts down the sign. There's a few swings I saw where I knew I wanted to do it the next pitch. And then just trying to get comfortable with all the pitches out of it, too."

Facing a representative Astros lineup that included George Springer, Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa, Hellickson cruised through his first three innings on 40 pitches, allowing only a broken-bat single and a walk. He gave up a pair of hits in the fourth but stranded both runners on base and departed having thrown 37 of 57 pitches for strikes, lowering his spring ERA to 1.00 in nine total innings.

"What I like about Helly is he threw strikes," manager Davey Martinez said. "That's always a good thing. He's very effective and very pitch-efficient. When he's like that, he's really good."

Hellickson began working on the slide-step delivery during his offseason workouts. He threw mostly fastballs with it early on but is now incorporating his full repertoire.

During today's start, he often switched back and forth between his full wind-up and the slide-step from one pitch to the next. That might throw a kink into some pitchers' mechanics, but Hellickson's simple delivery helps make it a simple tweak.

"It's actually pretty easy for me," he said. "I'm not a big lower-half guy anyway. As long as I can just stay back on that back leg when I do it, I feel like it's pretty easy. I was pretty comfortable working on it in the offseason and I'm just getting more comfortable with it as we go along."