HOUSTON — Maybe you’ve heard the Toronto Blue Jays have had hassle slugging the ball this season. They’ve the second-fewest homers throughout MLB (12) whereas scoring fewer than 4 runs per sport. Their barrel fee and remoted energy are among the many lowest in baseball. However they actually aren’t alone in being flummoxed by Houston Astros ace Hunter Brown.
Monday, Brown prolonged his exceptional scoreless streak — it started April 3 — to 24 consecutive innings with an unreal seven in opposition to an overwhelmed Toronto lineup, because the Astros dropped the Blue Jays, 7-0.
If he’s going to maintain this up, hitters ought to get to make use of aluminum bats in opposition to him. And it isn’t simply this month. Brown’s been one of many hardest pitchers within the sport to do injury in opposition to over the past 12.
No certified pitcher has a decrease hard-hit fee or common exit velocity allowed because the starting of final Might than Brown. And the one one with a decrease ERA than his 2.37 coming into Monday’s begin is arguably the perfect within the sport, Paul Skenes (2.14).
Sitting 97.7-m.p.h. along with his four-seamer and infrequently touching 99, Brown combined and matched six completely different pitches Monday, incomes whiffs with every of them. It’s one factor when Chris Bassitt does that whereas working within the low-90s. It’s one other when a dude’s throwing one of many hardest four-seamers within the sport and a 96-mph two-seamer that isn’t precisely tender.
“He is acquired good things, man,” Blue Jays supervisor John Schneider mentioned. “It is a actually massive fastball with numerous extension. It will get on you. It is 97-99 and it actually will get on you. He threw a cutter that was 92. He was good. He had all of his stuff working.”
Good luck guarding in opposition to these pitches on the high of the zone whereas respecting a fading, 89 m.p.h. “changeup” and arduous curveball on the backside. That knuckle curve options 6.5 inches extra drop than ones with comparable velocities and launch factors this season. After which there’s a slider for righties and a cutter for lefties, as a result of why not?
So, when Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman allowed 4 runs in a loud fifth inning, the Astros had all they have been going to want. However placing that tough body apart, Gausman can come away from his outing feeling good about one quantity specifically — eight.
That’s the variety of whiffs he earned along with his splitter over six innings. It’s essentially the most he’s gotten with the pitch this season — and solely the seventh time he’s had that many in 36 begins because the starting of 2024.
Granted, there’s no manner Gausman can really feel optimistic following a fifth inning when six consecutive Astros reached base with one out, 4 of them finally scoring. But, almost all that injury got here in opposition to Gausman’s fastball. Cam Smith and Brendan Rodgers singles; Zach Dezenzo’s double; an opposite-field groundball single from Isaac Peredes of all issues. The result’s little doubt a irritating one for Gausman. However what he confirmed within the course of was encouraging.
“I believed his stuff was actually, actually good tonight,” Schneider mentioned. “He had a extremely good combine going. Form of saved them in between. His fastball was actually good. There was numerous shut pitches on the backside of the zone.”
Gausman’s splitter was doing what it ought to, beginning thigh-high earlier than plummeting beneath bats. Within the second inning, he used it to strike out Smith, stranding Jeremy Pena’s leadoff stroll. Within the third, he used it for back-to-back strikeouts of Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez to desert one other runner. In between, he used it to generate weakly hit groundouts from Yanier Diaz and Peredes.
In all, Gausman allowed the pitch to be put in play solely 3 times on the evening and earned a referred to as or swinging strike with 31 per cent of the splitters he threw. If Gausman can get that pitch working once more, he’ll have taken an essential step in direction of rediscovering the ace-like type he’s been looking for some time.
“I feel it was simply in the correct spot. Loads of them have been carrying the zone very well. And there have been just a few that have been actually shut that they did not swing at. When it is doing that, it is normally fairly good,” Schneider mentioned. “Fastball location up and down is vital for him. And when that is on, the break up’s a extremely good pitch.”
From 2020 by 2023, Gausman repeatedly posted whiff charges between 43 and 49 per cent along with his splitter, making it probably the most efficient secondary choices within the sport. However after producing swing-and-miss with a 3rd of his splitters in 2024, that fee dropped off a cliff in 2025, sitting at 19 per cent coming into Monday’s outing.
Underneath the hood, just a few components caught out. For starters, Gausman was killing the spin on the pitch much less successfully, averaging over 1,900 RPM of spin with it this yr after sitting within the 1,700 vary over the past two seasons, and the 1,500’s in 2021 and 2022. That impacted the pitch’s form, inflicting it to maneuver extra horizontally to his arm-side with much less sharp vertical drop.
Extra motion needs to be a very good factor, proper? Not essentially. Splitters are designed to appear like fastballs out of the hand earlier than dropping vertically late of their path to the plate, which helps generate these whiffs from hitters swinging too early and too excessive. But when the pitch is transferring an excessive amount of horizontally, it’s simpler for hitters to distinguish from his fastball, undermining that tunneling impact and permitting them to put off or regulate their swings to get wooden to it.
“You’ll see at occasions you get the nasty drop, the depth to the pitch, the vertical motion that we’re on the lookout for. After which, different occasions, it would not have fairly the drop and extra horizontal,” mentioned Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker. “So, we’re making an attempt to get extra consistency with it down. And that is grip changes, that’s some issues that we’re making an attempt to mess around with a bit of bit. The primary factor is to hold the zone. To not waste a pitch the place it is a ball out of hand.”
Over his first 4 begins this season, Gausman shifted his splitter location up, touchdown it within the zone at a career-high fee. It’s truthful to presume that was an try and get hitters swinging at it extra usually, and even taking it for referred to as strikes in the event that they’re making an attempt to get rid of it and shedding. However the elevated horizontal motion made it simpler for hitters to acknowledge the pitch and put it in play or combat it off, which is why Gausman’s splitter in-zone whiff fee bottomed out to five.4 per cent:
That additionally allowed the pitch to float into the bat paths of right-handed hitters, who hammered Gausman’s break up by his first 4 begins at a median exit velocity of 99 m.p.h.
However Gausman threw it 31 occasions to right-handed hitters Monday, getting 5 swinging strikes, three referred to as strikes, and two foul balls. Maybe most encouraging was the way it performed with two strikes within the strikeouts of Smith and Altuve.
From 2021 by 2024, in the event you have been a right-handed hitter in a two-strike rely in opposition to Gausman, you have been getting a splitter over half the time. However to this point this season, Gausman’s thrown extra four-seamers than splitters in two-strike counts in opposition to righties and tried to make use of his seldom-thrown slider as an out pitch extra usually than ever.
It’s been a helpful and maybe mandatory adjustment, as Gausman’s splitter has been getting much less swing-and-miss in opposition to righties in two-strike counts — solely 10 per cent, a far cry from the 41.6 per cent he averaged from ’21 by ‘24 — than each his four-seamer (23.1 per cent) and slider (20 per cent). However Gausman finally wants his splitter working in opposition to righties to achieve success. It’s basic to his sport.
So, too, is four-seam fastball velocity. After spending the early a part of 2024 looking for misplaced ticks on his heater, Gausman targeted on including weight over the low season and has begun 2025 in a a lot better spot, averaging 94.2 m.p.h. on the pitch over his first 4 begins.
Monday, it averaged 95.6 m.p.h. and Gausman used it to complete half of his strikeouts. He entered the sport tied for the ninth-most strikeouts completed with a four-seamer throughout MLB with 13 — 11 of them swinging.
Finally, he threw it 45 per cent of the time, following a pattern that’s seen him throwing it as usually as he has since 2019, earlier than he reinvented himself in his late-20’s, dramatically upping his splitter utilization and changing into the Cy Younger caliber ace we’ve seen since.
“I be ok with him when his velo is the place it’s. And I feel the consistency on the break up will come. We have seen it at its finest at occasions and we simply have not seen it at its finest on a regular basis,” Walker mentioned. “I might fairly have extra drop proper off the fastball than the fade. We need to draw swings. The one which’s away tends to be laid off extra. And clearly when it’s within the zone, its flatter. So, there is definitely the explanation why we would favor the depth of the pitch over the horizontal.”
If Gausman has that motion he’s in search of, if he has his splitter working once more, he can start reversing the sample of his outcomes over the past 12 months. He can get again to what he does finest. Onerous, back-spinning fastballs up; vertical, late-breaking splitters down. The form of arm you construct a rotation round.
“The e-book is out on me. Guys aren’t as inclined to chase the break up. So, I feel I simply must throw it a bit of larger. And for me, proper now, it has been a tough adjustment to make,” Gausman mentioned. “I acquired some groundballs on some splitters larger up within the zone tonight, which is an effective signal. However the form of that pitch is not essentially precisely what I might need proper now. You simply return to the drafting board. I’ve acquired one other begin in a pair days. It isn’t going to get any simpler. So, I’ve acquired to form of determine it out. “
