Welcome to the INSIDE CHINA BASIN Baseball Podcast

Updated 3 times a week on TheSportsVirus.com!

New Giants closer Mark Melancon is our guest. He signed with San Francisco as a free agent after combining for 47 saves last season with Pittsburgh and Washington. In 2015 he led the National League in saves with 51 for the Pirates.

Photo courtesy of William Yee

Melancon told The Sports Virus how he developed his cutter: …“I learned lot from Mariano (Rivera), being in the bullpen with him. Billy Conners was a pitching coach over there (Yankees). He put it in my head it might be a good pitch for me. Then I continued to watch Mo. When I got to Houston, Brandon Lyon was throwing the cutter on a regular basis so I would pick his brain. He would teach me what to look for, what the feel is supposed to be like. Over that season I would sprinkle in a few cutters and it just got better and better. When Russell Martin got to Pittsburgh, he caught Mo before so he really instilled that pitch into me and said ‘hey this is a great pitch, I know how to use it, let’s use it.’ That gave me a lot of confidence because he knew what he was looking for and he helped me along the way.”

Listen To Mark Melancon

Come back SATURDAY for Giants RHP TYLER BEEDE

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