'Gomber's stuff plays': Slow-balling southpaw baffles Braves for 8 innings

ATLANTA – The timeless classics become that way for a reason. And there’s very little in baseball more timeless than “change speeds, throw strikes, work quickly.”

Austin Gomber put up the kind of performance you might have seen 40 years ago on Thursday night, stifling and flummoxing the Braves over eight innings in a 3-1 Rockies win. He struck out six, didn’t issue a walk, and got his 24 outs on a very tidy 92 pitches.

Old school.

“Reminded me of, here in Atlanta, a combination of [Tom] Glavine, Charlie Leibrandt, Steve Avery,” said manager Bud Black, a former pitching coach and an aficionado of efficient and aggressive pitching.

It was the longest outing by a Colorado starter since another eight-inning gem by Gomber on May 22. And he did it while maxing out at 91.8 miles per hour and averaging 89.8 on his four-seam fastball.

Not many guys do it that way anymore, but Gomber had Braves hitters shaking their heads all night.

He threw all four of his pitches extensively, with 38 fastballs and 18 of each of his three offspeed pitches -- curveball, slider and changeup. His fastest pitch was the 79th-fastest thrown in the game, and he threw 36 of the 43 slowest pitches of the night.

“I don’t really care how I get them out, to be honest with you,” he said. “If they get out, they get out. But I think it’s just having a little self-awareness. I’m not going to be going out there striking out 10-plus guys every time out, so I think the best thing I can do to help the team is to eat innings, to go deep in the game and keep us close, give us a chance to win. Tonight was a really good example of that.”

What Gomber did do was pound the strike zone. Of his 92 pitches, 67 went for strikes. He worked all over the zone with all of his weapons, and did not allow a single ball to be hit at 100 mph or more after the second inning.

“[Lower velocity] isn't something we don't see a lot in our game right now,” said Braves leadoff man Michael Harris II, who went 0-for-4. “It's hard to go down to it. Normally you adjust during the game. But I think he did a good job of ramping up when he needed to and then going back down when he needed to."

It was the seventh outing of at least seven innings with no walks by a Rockies starter this year, and the fourth one from Gomber alone. He may not be conventional, but it works.

Gomber found himself in a little bit of trouble early, allowing a run on three singles in the first inning and working around a leadoff double in the second. Then he locked down, permitting one more baserunner for the rest of the night. That was a single by Marcell Ozuna in the sixth, but he erased the runner immediately with a 6-4-3 double play -- the only ground-ball outs he recorded after the third inning.

“From then on, it was just lights-out,” said catcher Hunter Goodman. “He was throwing the pitches where he wanted to, keeping them off balance, mixing his speeds, and he did a great job.”

It was popup, soft liner, lazy fly ball, popup and occasional strikeout. It was not what you’re probably used to seeing in baseball in 2024, but it was devilishly effective.

“Gomber’s style is not like most,” said Black. “There’s obviously 150 starting pitchers out there in the big leagues, and there are some guys like Gomby, but there’s more guys with low to mid 90s velocity with harder secondary pitches and what people might refer to as better stuff. But Gomber’s stuff plays. It’s a good hook. It’s a tight slider. It’s a good changeup. So his style is his style.”