Doolittle ditches toe tap, returns to peak form

ATLANTA - The toe tap was gone. The results were back to normal.

Sean Doolittle looked like his old self again Tuesday night during a scoreless bottom of the ninth that preserved the Nationals' 5-4 win over the Braves. He faced four batters, struck out three of them and emerged with his 10th save in a game his team desperately needed.

And for the first time in 2019, he did it without his front foot touching dirt before taking his full stride toward the plate.

That seemingly innocuous move turned into a national story 10 days earlier when Cubs manager Joe Maddon protested to umpires that Doolittle's toe tap was illegal. The umpires disagreed, saying Doolittle's quick tap was not comparable to the full double-step Chicago's Carl Edwards Jr. was forced to change earlier this season. And Maddon dropped the protest the following morning.

Whether it had any impact or not, Doolittle wound up struggling through his two worst outings of the year after that. He gave up four runs without retiring a batter at Citi Field in New York last week, then nearly blew a three-run lead to the Marlins over the weekend.

So he went back and reviewed videos from early in the 2018 season and noticed differences in his delivery.

"Those were some of the best innings of my career, statistically, some of my best spin rates and extension I've ever gotten," he said. "I didn't have a toe tap at that point, and my hand position was a lot different, and I had much more rhythm and tempo to my delivery. And I was able to stay tall, and really come down the mound. Not to get too technical, but that's really what it was about: staying taller so I could get on top of the ball, spin it a little better and get that deception back."

Doolittle was able to incorporate the fixes into Tuesday night's game, and the results were exceptional. He struck out Johan Camargo on a changeup. Then he struck out Ronald Acuña Jr. on a fastball. Then, after allowing a two-out single to Dansby Swanson, he struck out Freddie Freeman with a surprise slider, one that was thrown much higher and over the plate than intended but nonetheless did the trick.

"Listen, he's so good," Doolittle said of Freeman. "He's so good, man. Sometimes in order to get him out, you've got to get a little bit lucky."

As for the notorious toe tap? Doolittle seems ready to ditch it for good. Does Maddon actually get credit in the end for raising the issue and giving the lefty reason to change?

Let's not go too far here.

"I'm going to say it had more to do with the implosion against the Mets and the rough outing against the Marlins," Doolittle said. "I'd been trying to look at and find something, and it took a little bit longer because the extension was there. It was the same extension, but the way my body was getting to that point just wasn't the same. So we finally pinpointed it and saw some good results tonight."