“I think some things in my mechanics changed probably due to fatigue without even realizing it,” Brown said a few weeks ago. “I was getting a little bit more crossfire [in my delivery], which limited my ability to get the fastball away, especially to right-handers. I was leaving it more arm-side, allowing them to do more damage on my fastball cutter. That was definitely something we discussed, and we need to stay focused on it this year and make modifications as the season progresses.

Brown said he’s working with pitching coaches Josh Miller and Billy Murphy on a new slider with a lower velocity, which will provide him an alternative to the cutter-slider he used last year. The pitch averaged 91.

Going into it, we discussed [how] at the end of this season my numbers weren’t as good as they were at the start, and how to battle that and see what we could do to capitalize on a good, whole, entire season,” Brown said. “Coming off a full season, the timing’s a little bit different, too, with when you start throwing with more intensity.”

Brown experimented with a sweeper last year and discovered that throwing something with so much break from his arm side made it tough to remain in the strike zone.

“We’re just going for something that the biggest thing is going to be the velocity change we’re shooting for,” he stated. “I kind of started working on it over

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