TORONTO — “How do I pitch this guy?”
It’s a question a pitcher ponders every at-bat. For some guys, it’s easy—their put-away pitch is a nasty slider or a blazing four-seamer up and in. With Ross Stripling, the Blue Jays’ fifth starter, the answer isn’t always so fluid.
In his career, Stripling hasn’t been a big “stuff” guy, meaning he can’t rely on one or two pitches to strike guys out. His strength is his deep arsenal, which features a four-seam fastball, a sinker, a slider, a knuckle curve, and a change-up.
"You're just out there playing chess with it," Stripling said. "And throwing the kitchen sink, as I say after every appearance here."
So, with a big Yankees hitter at the plate, what does he go to?
Facing Joey Gallo in the second inning of Friday’s 12-3 loss, Stripling had a few options. Gallo bats left-handed, so keeping the ball away from his hands could work—maybe a sinker on the corner. Ultimately, Stripling started with a looping knuckle curve in off the plate. Fine, that makes sense. Gallo , after all, was batting just .098 on breaking balls as of Friday.
The curve misses. Darn. Now what? Down 1-0, Stripling felt cheeky enough to fire a changeup outside that Gallo whiffed at. Then he threw two more perfect changes. Gallo swung through them both.
That one at-bat against Gallo seemed simple enough—throw the changeup down-and-away to lefties, where they can’t hurt you. But Stripling has put a greater emphasis on throwing his changeup to right-handed batters than he has in the past. The 32-year-old used the changeup 16 times against righties and only eight times against lefties in 3.2 innings on Friday.
This year, Stripling is throwing the changeup more often than he ever has before (26%)—and it’s all part of the right-hander’s plan. Before each game, he studies how he should attack a hitter. Clearly, the scouting report recommends changeups versus the Yankees.
While he threw his slider just a tick more often Friday, the changeup was the most effective pitch. Stripling got all three of his strikeouts by pulling the string, and New York seemed a little surprised.
In the third inning, Stripling started Josh Donaldson with a slider. After Donaldson fouled it off, a fastball came down the gut and he swung and missed. By pitching backwards—throwing offspeeds in fastball counts and vice versa— for most of the evening, Stripling couldn’t be timed up. When a low changeup plopped into the zone for strike three, Donaldson froze up, then slammed his bat on the plate in anger.
Stripling’s minus-four run value on his changeup is the best among Blue Jays pitchers this season. It’s becoming a solid pitch for him, but is he becoming a changeup specialist, like Marco Estrada was for the Blue Jays years ago?
"I think that's a pitch that I'm leaning on now," Stripling said. "Definitely threw it a lot ... I feel like the changeup has done a good job of keeping guys off balance and missing barrels and missing bats and get strikeouts lately. So probably been leaning on it maybe almost too much, but for the most part having success with it."
The feel is as good as it’s ever been. And that’s a good thing for the Blue Jays, who need quality outings from their back-end starter, and for Stripling, who’s found his groove on the mound.
Friday’s outing was a bumpy one—84 pitches through 3.2 frames is absurd, and two earned runs on five hits isn’t phenomenal either. But there is plenty to like about what Stripling's done lately, even if the team couldn't figure it out Friday.
"We're better than what we showed tonight," Stripling said.
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