Despite some shaky play at times, the Toronto Blue Jays find themselves with a respectable 18-9 record as they approach the end of April; Kevin Gausman has been a big part of that success.
The 32-year-old continued his impressive campaign on Saturday afternoon. He recorded a career-high 13 strikeouts in a 1-0 extra innings victory over the Seattle Mariners. Gausman allowed six hits and one walk on 108 pitches across seven innings. Not too shabby.
He had a noteworthy play during the second inning when he picked off Tom Murphy at second base to conclude the inning.
There was a concerning incident in this one when Gausman took a Jarred Kelenic comebacker off the top of the back of his left leg during the sixth inning. It's safe to say that didn't slow him down, however. He recovered, punched Kelenic out and retired the next two batters to close out the inning.
After allowing a pair of singles, Gausman wrapped up the seventh inning by striking out Sam Haggerty with that nasty splitter. That punchout was Gausman's MLB-leading 54th of the season.
You would think that that would be more than enough to earn the win, but baseball can be a cruel sport. I'm sure we can all agree on that. The game came to a close in the bottom of the tenth inning when Daulton Varsho singled to deep right field in a bases loaded situation. Bo Bichette jaunted in from third for the walk-off finish.
Gausman entered this contest on a roll as of late. He had recorded ten-plus punchouts in two of his previous three starts. He also began this season with back-to-back scoreless performances. There was a rocky outing against the Astros on April 17, but Gausman has been firing on all cylinders outside of that.
What has really been helping him is his effective use of the splitter. Gausman recorded twenty swings-and-misses on the pitch in Saturday's game. That is the highest number of whiffs on the splitter in a single game in the pitch-tracking era, beating the previous high of 18 set by both Gausman and Shohei Ohtani. He has been partial to the splitter his entire professional career, and has continued to utilize it as part of his impressive repertoire since entering the majors in May 2013.
You could argue that Gausman's hot play as of late has inspired the Blue Jays' pitching corps as a whole. Their bullpen has gone 15 straight innings without allowing a run through the first five games of this homestand. The likes of Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza, Yimi García and closer Jordan Romano have been picking up their play as of late. Not to mention some impressive starts from fellow rotation stalwarts José Berríos and Yusei Kikuchi.
While it is only one month and change into this campaign, Gausman is looking like he could certainly finish with a few American League Cy Young votes. Gerrit Cole may be a tough player to overtake, but that is in no way a means to discredit Gausman's perfomance thus far. He, his 2.33 ERA and 1.01 WHIP will take a seat to watch Chris Bassitt try and finish off a clean sweep of this six-game stay on Sunday afternoon.
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