“I think there is something to be said about that,” Matheny said. “It’s usually feeling good, then the velocity, then the location, then the secondary pitches. I think we’ve kind of seen that natural progression. He’s in September expecting to have everything all at once. Right now, that last component, which is his changeup, is something that he’s accustomed to having whenever he wants it. It’s a pitch that is kind of eluding him right now, and it’s a pitch he’s going to have to keep working on until he gets there. I don’t think it’s much a stretch to stay it’s not unlike spring training. But we’re also about at that point where it should be fixing itself.”

As Wacha made his case to be a starter in October 2013, he blazed through September with a 1.72 ERA in five starts, one of which was a near-miss no-hitter.

He leaned heavily on a fastball-changeup combo. Nine out of every 10 pitches he threw was either a fastball or a changeup, according to BrooksBaseball.net, which uses Pitch F/x technology to track individual pitches. Wacha threw 126 changeups in September 2013, nearly six for every one curveball he flipped. This September, he has thrown a total of 21 changeups. He has thrown two curves for every one changeup. Wacha said the feel hasn’t been there for his put-away pitch, and he had to abandon it.