Brad Ausmus is not alone. Not even close.
Few people, if any, saw this kind of breakout coming for Matthew Boyd.
Through eight starts, Boyd, who entered the season with a career ERA of 5.07, has been one of the best pitchers in baseball.
He kept the ball rolling Wednesday night against Ausmus' new team, holding the Angels to one run over six innings in an 8-1 Tigers win. He struck out six and walked one.
Boyd, 28, is now 4-2 with a 2.86 ERA and a 0.93 WHIP. He hasn't allowed more than three earned runs in a single start this season.
Ausmus managed Boyd for two-and-a-half seasons in Detroit, during which time the lefty went 13-20 with a 5.42 ERA and a 1.77 WHIP. He'd be lying if he said he foresaw Boyd turning into a potential ace.
"I don't think I would have predicted these types of performances like he's pitched this year," Ausmus told the Jamie and Stoney Show on 97.1 The Ticket. "I always did think that Matthew Boyd was going to be a very good Major League pitcher.
"But he's kind of developing into more of a top of the rotation-type pitcher with the strikeout ability and that slider."
Indeed, while numbers like his ERA and WHIP have tumbled, Boyd's strikeout rate has skyrocketed. His 63 K's rank second in the AL. He worked hard on his slider in the offseason, specifically on increasing its depth. It's become a put-away pitch for him in 2019.
His strikeout-to-walk ratio of 5.73, by far a career high, ranks fourth in the AL. And how about this? Boyd leads all AL pitchers in WAR (2.0), according to Fan Graphs. The only big-league pitcher ahead of him is a guy by the name of Max Scherzer (2.1).
There's still a long way to go for Boyd, but the early returns in 2019 have been better than anyone could have imagined. Ausmus included.
In his interview with 97.1 The Ticket, Ausmus also touched on the comments made yesterday by Nicholas Castellanos at the Tigers' annual luncheon at the Detroit Economic Club.
Asked about the differences between Ausmus and his new manager Ron Gardenhire, Castellanos said, "Brad is more analytical. He's very intelligent. But sometimes he doesn't communicate his feelings very well. It's not his fault. It's just how he is."
Ausmus, who managed Castellanos for four seasons and still has a good relationship with him, said, "I take Nick at his word. Maybe I could have been more communicative with younger players. He was a young player at that time. I probably stayed more in touch with the veteran guys, and maybe that was a flaw.
"Nick is one of those guys I still stay in touch with, one of the guys I check on regularly. I talked to him for 20 minutes (on Wednesday). So I take him at his word. I know that as much as (the media) wants to spin it as some type of divide, that's not what it was and it's definitely not what Nick was implying."
