One of the things Bailey learned while studying Houck was that his pitch quality was excellent but he was putting himself in too many tough spots. Houck heard two words often this spring while throwing on the sun-soaked bullpens and backfields of Boston's Florida spring training complex. "I just like to say, 'Over white,'" Bailey said. "'Tanner, you just have to throw the thing over white.' His miss patterns tend to be big east-west. "I think if you look at Tanner, some of the struggles just stem from count leverage. Just recognizing how good his stuff is, and the quality of pitcher he is. Harnessing the strike zone was key." Last season, 26.7% of Houck's pitches came when the batter had the count in his favor. That ranked in the middle of the pack, 318th out of 603 pitchers who threw at least 250 pitches.
