Oakland A's reliever Sean Doolittle pitches scoreless inning, fastball barely touches 90 mph

Despite only once recording a fastball at 90 miles per hour, left-handed relief pitcher Sean Doolittle recorded a scoreless sixth inning for the Athletics. He struck out two batters and allowed one hit in his inning of work.

Gameday recorded Doolittle throwing two curveballs, three changeups, and nine fastballs in his 14 pitches of work, with Castellanos striking out on an 80 mile per hour changeup. Doolittle's fastball was most frequently recorded at 89 miles per hour.

As Doolittle told me the other day, this is part of a process - he's still getting better. This is like mid-spring for him.

— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) May 27, 2015

Doolittle only began seeing game action on May 14, and even that comes after stopping his preseason training regimen on January 23 with the slight left shoulder tear that kept him on the disabled list until yesterday. I'm not going to say that a flamethrower throwing in the high-80s is good news, but he has taken the time to work on having other pitches. You have to be optimistic about him getting through a major league inning without relying on pure speed, and he may be a better pitcher for it going forward.