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JUPITER, Fla. — Even if he could swing the bat, there was no way for Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar to do anything against this backdoor slider on the far side of the plate. The late, sharp bite Sonny Gray gets on one of the best breaking balls in the game meant it didn’t look like a strike until it snapped back and into the catcher’s mitt.
Trackman, the tech used to call pitches, said it was a strike.
Nootbaar nodded.
Gray disagreed.
The right-hander gave his teammate a ball, so the pitcher was behind in the count.
“Sometimes umpires do that, and you’ve got to move on,” Gray said later. “So I like to make it more difficult on myself than easy on myself. I’d rather have a strike be called a ball than a ball be called a strike in a practice session. Throw a ball and call it a strike — makes it easier. But if you throw a strike and it’s called a ball, that makes it harder. I’d rather not give myself anything like that pitch.”
