World Series elimination Game 6, Strasburg tipping pitchesSummarized, condensed, and EDITED.
The full article has many interesting details. After winning the World Series,
Nats Xtra's Bo Porter said that the Nationals' “video man” was an unsung hero. He saved the season when he noticed that Stephen Strasburg was tipping his pitches in Game 6. (I had misspelled the man's name in the GDT as John Toscas.)
Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci is the only writer or reporter who identified him.
Jonathan Tosches Unsung World Series herohttps://www.si.com/mlb/2019/10/30/stephen-strasburg-nationals-saved-season-world-series-game-6 In World Series elimination Game 6, the Nationals had handed Strasburg a 1-0 lead with a run in the top of the first, but Strasburg lost it in the bottom of the inning with just 12 pitches: double, wild pitch, sacrifice fly, strikeout, home run.
Jonathan Tosches is the Nationals’ 37-year-old coordinator of advance scouting. He has a masters degree in sport management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he was a dead-eye three-point shooter in intramural hoops. He supervises the Nationals’ video review replay system during games. He noticed that Strasburg was tipping his pitches.
The Astros were on almost everything Strasburg was throwing, and Tosches, from his view of the television monitor, knew why. He remembered the game Strasburg pitched in Arizona on August 3. The Diamondbacks pounded Strasburg for nine runs in less than five innings. The D-Backs knew what was coming. The Nationals broke down the tape and discovered Strasburg was tipping his pitches by the way he reached into his glove to grip the baseball near his waist, just before he raised his hands to the set position. Tosches told pitching coach Paul Menhart.
Strasburg went back out for the second inning. On alert from Tosches, Menhart watched him carefully. “I saw it plain as day,” Menhart said. “I knew every pitch he was throwing. He got through the inning clean, but it was obvious.” Menhart didn’t have to show video to Strasburg. The pitcher knew instantly what he was doing to telegraph his pitches. The pitching coach and his pitcher came up with a fix. Strasburg would reach into his glove for his grip, then briefly start flapping his glove at the waist before raising his hands at the set position. The game flipped right there.
The Astros went 3-for-22 after Strasburg stopped tipping his pitches. They didn’t know what hit them. Strasburg became the first pitcher in more than a quarter of a century—since Curt Schilling in 1993—to take the ball into the ninth inning to win a World Series elimination game....
https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/10/30/stephen-strasburg-nationals-saved-season-world-series-game-6
