PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Brandon Workman, after a poor start to his spring, has turned the corner in recent outings and is in contention for one of the final available spots in the bullpen.
"His last two have been much better,'' said John Farrell. "Seemingly, there's more direction to his delivery, through his intended area. He's giving off a mound presence of greater conviction and aggressiveness and it's resulted in better quality of strikes being thrown.''
The Sox told Workman before camp that he needed to demonstrate a better job in "throwing the ball downhill in the bottom of the strike zone. The way he was going about it in (earlier in camp) was, his arm slot may have moved up to where he was over the top. There was a tendency to tilt his shoulders, which didn't allow him to work as freely and generate the arm speed he normally does. There's been a counter-adjustment to that in the last two outings.
"We're seeing the velocity creep up and overall (improved) sharpness to the pitches, in addition to better location in the bottom of the zone."