Montas Starting Slow, but Throwing Hard

Second-year Athletics' starter Frankie Montas isn't throwing many inning yet, but he's showing his hard stuff while working to perfect his split-finger.

Because he pitched during the offseason in the Dominican Republic’s winter league, Frankie Montas, the A’s aren’t anxious to have him throw too many pitches early in the spring.

He threw just one inning in his first start and Monday, in his second start, he got two innings. The slow-as-you-go approach doesn’t seem to be troubling Monday, who again didn’t give up any runs as he works on execution of his off-speed pitches.

After a 1-2-3 first inning, he issued a walk and hit a batter in the second inning, but the Chicago Cubs were in no danger of breaking through against him. His fastball sat between 96-98 mph and led to a couple of strikeouts, but Montas doesn’t want to be a one-pitch pitcher.

“He was working on his splitter and slider,” manager Bob Melvin said of Montas. “(He) got a little out of whack for a minute. He threw a lot of breaking balls today. He’s usually quite the strike-thrower. But he ended up finding it again.”

Montas, who missed half the 2019 season while serving a suspension for PED use, threw in the winter leagues to make up for the 80 games he missed. He’s attempting to regain command in particular of his split-finger pitch, the weapon that got him off to a 9-2 start for 2019 before the suspension ended his season.

He sees the splitter as his most valuable weapon.

“I feel that (the splitter is) what made the difference last year, just being able to throw it in any count,” Montas said. “And I felt like that, with my fastball, (the splitter) almost has the same movement as my two-seamer. It’s just slower. And I was able to get it under control so early, that made a big difference.”

Two games and three innings into the Cactus League, Montas hasn’t allowed a hit. On Monday, he threw 20 of his 32 pitches for strikes as he continues to experiment.

A year ago, Montas was focused on trying to dominate in the spring with his fastball. He didn’t know if he’d be in the rotation, so he tried to pitch he way on to the roster, and he succeeded.

This year, he knows he’s going to be a starter. That’s allowed him to experiment.

“It definitely it talks a little pressure off my shoulders,” Montas said. “But I’m trying to keep the same mentality, just trying to go out and compete. We have a lot of good pitchers in here. I’m not trying to take this for granted. I’m just trying to show up and grind every day.“