The slider has more depth to it than it did in previous seasons. In spring training last year, pitching coach Caleb Cotham began educating Strahm on seam-shifted wake. The idea was to use turbulent air to push the ball toward home plate.

As a result, Strahm has been able to get below the bat’s barrel more often.

“For the longest time in my career, I’ve always tried to get [depth] by manipulating the baseball while I’m throwing it,” Strahm said. “But Caleb showed me a lot of stuff about seam-shifting, so not so much how your hand is going to move the ball, but how the physics of a baseball works, and how it’s going to come out your hand. It was literally just rotating the grip, moving my thumb a little bit, and then all of a sudden, I was able to do it.

“I’ve always been able to get above a barrel with my fastball. I’ve always been an east, west, up kind of guy. Now I can go down [with my slider].”

It is the pitch with which Strahm induces the most whiffs (at a rate of 33.3%). Last season, his slider had 35.5 inches of vertical movement. This year, it has 39.8 inches, which is a significant jump from season-to-season.

Strahm isn’t paying attention to any of that, though.

“I’m not a big numbers guy,” he said. “The only thing that matters to me today is 6:05 we got the Nats. The only thing that can happen with my numbers is if I get the next guy out, they get better.”