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Buffalo’s Olivia Kincanon stepped out of the box to gather herself after falling behind Alexa Romero, 0-2. Romero had already struck out five batters to start the game, and Kincanon didn’t want to become the sixth. Catcher Geana Torres saw the change-up sign from the dugout. She relayed to Romero, who breathed, set and fired.

Kincanon watched the pitch, then watched as the home plate umpire called strike three on a ball in the lower left side of the strike zone. Romero threw her fists down and screamed in excitement. It was the sixth of a season-high 13 strikeouts in game one of an April 6 doubleheader.

The graduate student is having one of the best seasons of her career, with the third-lowest batting average against and ERA of her five-year Syracuse career. Part of that is due to her change-up, a new pitch she developed in the shortened 2020 season. Romero threw 63 innings with her new change-up in 2020. Her ERA fell nearly a run from 2019 and fell again this season.

“We didn’t get a full season for her to really establish that pitch as something that she can go to,” head coach Shannon Doepking said. “We’re trying to allow her the opportunity to continue to throw it and get more comfortable with it”

Romero was known as a hard-throwing left hander in high school at Eaglecrest (Colorado), where she fanned 85 batters her senior season. It was her combination of rise balls, curveballs and an upper-60s fastball that earned her invitations to the TC Sparkler All Star game from 2011-13 as a pitcher. It’s why former Syracuse head coach Mike Bosch recruited her from Colorado to central New York. It’s what translated into 595 strikeouts through her first three seasons with the Orange.

But when Doepking took over at SU, she wanted Romero to add another off-speed pitch. Michael Steuerwald started developing Romero’s change when he became SU’s pitching coach in 2020. Before the season, he told Romero she had to develop a change-up, no matter how she threw it, and she needed to work on it every day of the offseason.

Romero and Steuerwald developed two drills aimed at creating a “peel-drop” motion. The goal has been to get the changeup to start in the zone, then slide and dive to the outside corner of the batter she’s throwing to.

She would take a water bottle filled halfway with water or pink lemonade and begin her throwing motion with her wrist and the water set at the bottom of the bottle. Romero knew she was properly pulling up on her release at the correct time if the water moved together to the other side. 

“I’d pull up and the water would be on the back side of it. That was a funny one because I was like ‘this is just water, it’s amazing,’” Romero said.

That took care of the softball’s spin and movement, but the pitch was still only 5-10 MPH slower than her fastball — translating to more home runs. Her pitch speed is in the low 60s, about 10 mph slower than her fastball. Most change-ups are 25-35% slower than a pitcher’s fastest pitch, hers is 15% slower.

But when the pitch doesn’t drop, her start looks less like her back-to-back complete games against UMass and Buffalo — both times she struck out 13 batters — and more like her start on Sunday against Florida State, where she went 2/3 of an inning, allowing two home runs and a double.

Steuerwald has Romero stand at the back of the mound. Two poles and a string running across the plate covers home. When she throws, the goal is to get the ball to drop right before it hits the string.

Alexa Romero’s change-up helped her strike out 13 batters against Buffalo. Meghan Hendricks | Staff Photographer

During practices, Romero will stand 46 or 47 feet away from home plate, instead of the normal 43 feet, to emphasize the downward movement of her pitch. Steuerwald told her the biggest area Romero needs to focus on is realizing that if the pitch is going to miss, it has to miss low and be in the dirt.

“You’d rather (the pitch) be at knee level to lower, instead of belt high where it’s easy for hitters to time it up and … probably hit it out of the park,” Romero said. 

The next step is for Romero to be comfortable enough to throw the pitch in any count, not just when she’s ahead of the batter, Doepking said. Romero’s bullpen sessions have been heavily centered around working through her change-up. Wednesday, she said her bullpen was 85% change-ups, but when she locates it, it’s “definitely one of (her) favorite pitches to throw.” 

While her change-up works during bullpen sessions, warmups or offseason training, getting it to work consistently during games has been a struggle. Now, the goal is to locate her off-speed pitch and make mechanical changes when needed.

“It’s still a work in progress, but what you’re seeing is she’s getting a lot more comfortable being able to throw it, hopefully, a lot more than you’ve seen it in the past,” Doepking said.

Published on April 19, 2021 at 9:20 pm

Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt