NEW YORK -- Kevin Gausman is the guy who strikes hitters out. That¡¯s his thing.
His resurgence as one of baseball¡¯s best starters over the past five years has relied on it. He¡¯s the best of both worlds, a pitcher who can throw a starter¡¯s innings with a reliever¡¯s strikeout rate. Then, every once in a while, something strange happens.
Gausman didn¡¯t strike out a single Mets batter in Friday¡¯s 5-0 loss at Citi Field. It almost slipped under the radar, too. Gausman walked off the mound after 5 1/3 innings down only 2-0 thanks to a Pete Alonso home run on a pitch well out of the zone, so while the numbers look fine at a glance, they look completely unlike Gausman when you peer a little closer.
This marked just the fifth time in Gausman¡¯s 331 career games that he¡¯s been stuck with a ¡°zero¡± in the strikeout category. The others include three quick, ugly starts and an early ejection from 2017. Friday was one of a kind, and Gausman¡¯s five whiffs on 87 pitches were the 10th-fewest he¡¯s had in a start.
¡°I was just behind everybody. I was battling to get back to 2-2,¡± Gausman said.
A performance like this still falls more in the category of ¡°interesting¡± than ¡°worrying,¡± given how strong Gausman looked through Spring Training and his sharp first outing back in Toronto, but it¡¯s clear that Gausman still needs to get back to his identity. He¡¯s the whiff king, the man with the splitter that turns big leaguers into fools.
¡°Every team¡¯s different and every team¡¯s going to have a different approach, but it¡¯s about figuring that out in the first two innings. More than anything, I just have to get back to pounding the zone,¡± Gausman said. ¡°I only get my swings and misses when I¡¯m ahead in the count. That¡¯s when they¡¯re going to chase the split more often. When I¡¯m behind in the count, they¡¯re not going to do that.¡±
Strikeouts are what Gausman and the Blue Jays¡¯ coaching staff highlighted going into 2025. Even though he wasn¡¯t always working with his best stuff in ¡®24, Gausman was able to get to a 3.83 ERA on will and talent alone. That¡¯s a good season, but for Gausman to be the great pitcher everyone knows he can be, it¡¯s about strikeouts. A year ago, his strikeout rate was just 8.1 K/9. The year prior, when Gausman finished third in AL Cy Young Award voting, it was 11.5 K/9.
Gausman¡¯s 237 strikeouts that season (2023) are the fourth-most in Blue Jays history, trailing only the 1997-¡¯98 run of Roger Clemens (292, 271) and Robbie Ray¡¯s dominant ¡®21 (248). What do those three seasons have in common? Cy Young, Cy Young, Cy Young.
The 34-year-old pitches one way. Typically, that¡¯s all he needs. Yes, he¡¯s worked on a slider that has him excited and there are always some little wrinkles from year to year, but Gausman is a pitcher with a defined identity on the mound. That¡¯s what makes starts like Friday¡¯s so curious. We¡¯ve seen a handful of times over his years in Toronto, too, when an opposing team will really hone in on his splitter, but nine times out of 10, Gausman¡¯s version of baseball wins.
Juan Soto captures this well, even if Gausman has been on the wrong end of some of those at-bats. Coming into Friday, Soto had gone a career 8-for-15 against Gausman ¡ with 12 walks. Gausman got Soto both times Friday, a pop fly and a ground out.
¡°With him, I just go with my strengths. I¡¯m going to pitch up and throw splits down,¡± Gausman said. ¡°It worked today. It doesn¡¯t always work against him. He¡¯s one of the best in the world. You definitely try to do some different things, but I¡¯m not the guy that does that.¡±
Gausman captures himself well, too. When he¡¯s struggling, there¡¯s no need for him to invent a new pitch. That¡¯s not his game and he hasn¡¯t needed to, at least not in this era of his career.
That¡¯s why a start like this can be called, as manager John Schneider put it, ¡°a strange one.¡± Gausman can be good without his best stuff, but he crosses that line back to being a truly great MLB starter when he¡¯s missing bats and striking out more than a batter per inning. Friday afternoon in Queens was just a strange, rare glimpse of what it looks like when that doesn¡¯t happen.