How Blue Jays’ Gausman is discovering positive trend with splitter this season

On first glance, the Kevin Gausman we’ve seen this season looks a lot like the one who posted a solid-but-unspectacular 2024 campaign.

The 34-year-old’s ERA (3.83) is almost identical to last year’s (3.82), and he’s on pace for 182.1 innings — nearly the same as his 2024 total (181). While his strikeout rate is slightly higher than it was last season, it’s still well below his previous norms.

The easiest conclusion to draw from all of this is that Gausman is basically the pitcher we saw last year, and that in his mid-thirties, he’s transitioned from ace to strong mid-rotation contributor.

While that may be the consensus by the end of 2025, the right-hander is showing flashes of what made him dominant at the beginning of his Blue Jays career. Specifically, it looks like the quality of his splitter may be rebounding to 2022-23 levels.

Last season, one of the most significant reasons Gausman dropped off, particularly when it came to strikeouts, was that his splitter just wasn’t as dynamic as it’d been in previous seasons. The starter’s signature pitch had less vertical drop than it had before, created fewer whiffs, and was used more infrequently.

Gausman wields a good fastball, but its effectiveness is tied to the splitter to some extent, and the veteran’s other secondary offering (the slider) isn’t much of a bat-missing pitch. The right-hander has only recorded 13 strikeouts with that breaking ball in his Blue Jays career.

Without the splitter firing on all cylinders, he can’t be at his best.

In 2025, the overall numbers on the splitter are a bit mixed as its average vertical movement (33.0 inches) matches 2022, and its usage (37.9 percent) is relatively high, but its whiff rate looks similar to last year’s (36.2 percent).

That mixed bag of splitter — and overall — success is easier to untangle when cutting Gausman’s season in half:

That’s a significant difference in quantity and quality.

Gausman is clearly trusting his splitter more lately, and for good reason. In fact, his splitter rate has never been higher over a six-start span in his Blue Jays career.

One number that doesn’t appear in the table above that seems relevant to this trend is Gausman’s splitter velocity. Earlier in the season, the right-hander was throwing a harder, flatter version of the pitch. It averaged 86.5 mph in his first six starts and, at its best, would dip just under opponents’ bats:

In his last six outings, Gausman’s splitter has been noticeably slower (85.1 mph), but it has more dramatic action falling off the table.

That trend has been even more pronounced lately as his two lowest splitter velocity games of the season have come in his last two starts.

His June 1 start was a low-velo start across the board, but Gausman’s splitter was much further off his season average (-2.9 mph) than his fastball (-1.4). In the start before that, on May 26, Gausman’s heater was slightly above his 2025 average (+0.2 mph), but his split was well below (-1.3 mph).

It seems clear that Gausman is taking something off his splitter to maximize its movement. It’s also apparent that this strategy is working. The right-hander has more strikeouts on the offering in his last two starts (11) than he did in his first six appearances of 2025 combined (9).

This adjustment isn’t guaranteed to bring back Gausman’s 2022-23 form, as a slower splitter wasn’t the key to his success at that time. His average velo on it in 2024 (86.0 mph) was even slightly slower than it’d been the previous season (86.3 mph). That said, this is something he’s tinkered with quite a bit in his career. His splitter velo has been as low as 82.7 mph, and in the season when the pitch got him the most strikeouts (136 in 2021), it came in at just 83.6 mph.

MLB on Sportsnet

Watch the Toronto Blue Jays, Blue Jays Central pre-game, marquee MLB matchups, Jays in 30, original documentaries, the wild card, divisional series, championship series and entire World Series on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.

Broadcast schedule

For the time being, Gausman seems to have discovered an intriguing equilibrium with a finicky pitch that he hasn’t found his footing with consistently since 2023. It’s something he appears to believe in, too. The veteran has made 302 MLB starts, and his last three all rank in the top 10 in splitter percentage for his career.

It will be interesting to see how hitters adjust to Gausman in the weeks to come, but the trend is promising for the right-hander. In 2024, his splitter’s movement didn’t meet his career standards, and he went to it less than usual. That hasn’t been the case recently, allowing him to look a lot more like the starter who earned Cy Young votes in each of his first two seasons with the Blue Jays.

More from Sportsnet

Blue Jays prospect Trey Yesavage spins another gem with high-A Vancouver

Blue Jays stay hot with win over wild-card contender Twins