Marcus Stroman continues to piece together one of the best starts to a season in his career, most recently a strong seven innings against the Cubs on Thursday night, when he allowed just two runs on four hits through seven innings, striking out eight along the way.
Part of Stroman's success, which includes a 2.35 ERA in 84.1 innings this year, is thanks to his new pitch, which was on full display Thursday night.
The righty unveiled his split changeup during spring training, crediting teammate Robert Gsellman for helping him learn the pitch, and Stroman has kept at it, upping the pitch's usage to 23.9 percent on Thursday, the second highest in a game so far this season.
In his first start of the year, Stroman threw his new pitch just 10.6 percent of the time, but is clearly becoming more comfortable with it, making hitters increasingly uncomfortable.
"It's a new weapon," Stroman said. "I feel like it's honestly getting better each time I throw it. The more reps I get, I feel like the better feel I get for it. There will be certain games where I don't get to it much, but [Thursday] I got to it a lot and had really good results."
Stroman has generated a swing and miss rate of 39 percent on his new split changeup, and hitters are only barrelling the pitch up 10 percent of the time, Stroman's best mark among his entire repertoire. As Stroman continues to grow more comfortable with it, the tougher he believes he will be, which is a scary thought for opposing teams given how efficient he has already been this season.
"I feel like the more I can put it into the game, the better feel I will have with it as far as being able to throw it to the inside corner, outside corner, down, whenever I need to," Stroman said.
Stroman continues to up the usage on his new pitch, which is on pace to be his most frequently used offspeed pitch in any season over his entire career. On Thursday night, he threw it 24 percent of the time, more than any pitch other than his sinker, per Stacast. The split change drew a whiff percentage of 60 percent, best among all his pitches, and it showed in the results. After flashing it in spring training, Stroman clearly had no fear in breaking it out when the games counted, and it appears to only be getting better.
"It's still a very new pitch for me," Stroman said. "I just started throwing it in spring training. I never really had a good changeup my entire career, so to have this pitch is huge for me. I think it's gonna allow me to go deeper into games, and it just gives another weapon in the back of hitters' brains that they have to prepare for."
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