Paul Blackburn will not be the Paul Blackburn Oakland knew when he walks the field on Tuesday night against the Athletics, who hired him for eight seasons.
Blackburn changed his pitch mix after being acquired by the New York Mets during the trade deadline, emphasizing his cutter and changeup over his four-seam fastball and curveball. Although the Mets did not specifically instruct him to do so, they did include it into their strategy for Blackburn’s starts against the Angels and Rockies. After pitching 12 innings, he had a 1.50 ERA, 12 strikeouts, and 4 walks.
“I think our staff highlighted how good his cutter is and how good his changeup is,” pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said, “and to lean into those when we talked about the lineup, especially against left-handed hitters.”
Check out Blackburn’s pitch usage with Oakland versus with New York.
— Stats courtesy of Brooks Baseball
“I know my cutter is one of my better, if not my best pitch, analytically,” Blackburn said. “I’m just kind of taking that and running with it. Really just using my best pitch as much as possible.”
One of the small but significant adjustments to pitch usage during the past ten years has been that. You can throw a curveball more often than any other pitch, like Rich Hill, or utilize a cutter nearly all the time, like Corbin Burnes, in instead of pounding a poor fastball more often than 50% of the time.
“That’s how the game has changed the most,” Hefner said. “It used to be you had to establish your fastball. I still think there’s some reading the game, reading the hitter. But in a leverage spot, what gets the most miss or the most weak contact? If you lean into those pitches, you’re probably going to have success because they’ve been good for a reason.”
“There were times earlier this year where I did get beat on some fastballs,” Blackburn said, “and after the fact, it’s like ‘What am I doing? Throwing my fourth- or fifth-best pitch?’”
Blackburn’s cutter is undoubtedly his greatest pitch, largely due to the various looks he can achieve with it. He is learned how to toss the ball hard up to left-handed hitters for weak contact and to their back foot for swing-and-miss over the past two seasons.
“It’s a pitch I feel I can shape differently,” he said. “It’s the same exact grip, but it’s just two different pitches to the hitter.”
A sample of the differences Blackburn is referring to may be found in an at-bat from his most recent start versus Colorado. These are successive pitches to Ryan McMahon, not consecutive cutters, mind you. The first one is in McMahon’s possession.
The second is at his back left foot.
“Being able to attack him early with more of that cutter shape to it, then they see that same spin and expect that same action,” Blackburn said. “Now, instead of it cutting it slides.”
With his changeup, Blackburn is using a similar approach. When facing lefties, he wants to run the ball farther away from the hitters on the arm side, while when facing righties, he wants it to drop more like a splitter. Here, he merely slightly moves his middle finger to produce the necessary action.
Despite popular belief, Blackburn believes that depending more on two pitches has allowed him to play longer in games.
“One thing I have noticed, with the amount of cutters we’ve thrown inside to lefties, it’s really opened up the outside later in the game in the second or third at-bat,” he said.
Not just Blackburn is modifying his repertoire among the Mets. In recent weeks, Jose Quintana has relied heavily on his curveball. Lately, Sean Manaea has thrown with more of a two-pitch approach, using his hard fastball as his slow sweeper. When a pitcher modifies his repertoire, the other team will eventually attempt to adapt as well.
“They may know it, but can they adjust?” Hefner said. “If we’re locating it where we want, I still think we don’t have to change much.”
When Blackburn plays the green and gold on Tuesday, it will be an extremely unusual game of cat and mouse for him.
“It’ll be a lot,” he said. “It’ll be weird. Obviously I know everybody on that team and have great relationships with those guys. First start at Citi Field, first start against my old team — it’ll be a lot of fun.”
(Photo of Paul Blackburn: Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)
