Player Name: Dom Savino
Position: RHP
School: Smithtown East ’15
Savino is a 6’4″ RHP for Smithtown East. He won three games for them this season.
He is a very deceptive pitcher. He switched his arm angles during this outing. He appears to be throwing from a conventional motion until he delivers the ball. At balance point, he has a firm back leg, his leg kick is letter height and his front foot is parallel to the ground. He is leaning slightly back. He kicks his leg out rather than coming straight home. He has a long stride and lands with his foot facing home. He has a violent arm action. On the pitch above, he is coming from a straight side arm angle, but he delivered some pitches from a high 3/4 and some from almost a submarine action. He recoils immediately after delivering the pitch and does not fall off to the first base side.
He allowed two runs in his outing. He hit the first batter on an 0-1 fastball at 87 MPH. He fell behind the following batter 2-1 on all fastballs and he hit a chopper back to the mound. He hurried off the mound and fired a strike to second but the runner beat it. With runners at first and second he fell behind 2-0 on a 89 MPH fastball and 81 MPH change when the batter hit a grounder to short that went for a 6-5 fielder’s choice. The following batter fell behind 1-2 on an 86 MPh fastball, took a 63 MPH curve, and fouled off consecutive fastballs before grounding out to third to advance the runners. The following batter fouled off an 86 MPh fastball, swung through 86 MPH heat, took two 88 MPH fastballs away before lining a two-run single to CF on a fastball. He escaped the jam by inducing a 6-3 groundout on a 1-0 fastball.
He has very nasty stuff. The 63 MPH slurve after an 89 MPH fastball was straight out of Zack Greinke’s manual of pitching. His two-seamer has incredible tailing action as well. The problem with constantly switching the arm angle is being able to consistently find your release point.
Savino can be effective as a college reliever if he wants to keep throwing side arm, but he should just be a conventional 3/4 delivery pitcher if he wants to be a starter.
