Major League Baseball

San Francisco Giants' Kevin Gausman reaching bona fide ace status

Updated Jul. 30, 2021 8:22 a.m. ET

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By Jordan Shusterman
FOX Sports MLB Writer

Donuts.

That used to be all I thought about whenever I watched Kevin Gausman pitch. That would seem to be unfairly reductive for a pitcher who was once one of the best in college baseball at LSU and the fourth overall pick in the 2012 MLB Draft.

So why donuts? Well, because donuts:

OK, let me back up a bit in case that picture confuses you. It’s no secret that baseball players have a long history of unusual superstitions that they maintain to help them feel comfortable. Gausman developed a habit as early as middle school that still confounds me to this day: Between every inning of his starts, he ate three powdered mini donuts.

Once his Orioles teammates got wind of this ritual, they made sure he was plenty stocked for his first big-league spring training:

Gausman reportedly maintained this routine through his two years at LSU (the second of which he was a first-team All-American) and at least the early part of his pro career before ditching it for a more, shall we say, professional diet.

While Gausman has been a solid major-league pitcher for nearly a decade, his performance had never quite ascended to a level that forced me to think of anything other than that sugar-covered fun fact. He wasn’t bad. He wasn’t great. In fact, in his six seasons with the Orioles, Gausman’s 4.22 ERA in 763.2 innings pitched amounted to an ERA+ of 100 — exactly league average. Gausman was perfectly respectable but wholly unremarkable.

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In his other recent stops in Atlanta and Cincinnati, Gausman continued to show flashes of greater promise but never quite put it all together. Last year, his first with the Giants, he started to show glimpses of greatness, enough to warrant a qualifying offer (which he ultimately accepted) to return to San Francisco for another season.

Now when I think of Kevin Gausman, I think of this:

What you’re seeing there is Gausman’s splitter, which by some metrics has been the single best pitch in baseball in 2021. That splitter in particular made a pretty strong impression on the superhero known as Shohei Ohtani, who happens to throw the other nastiest splitter in baseball:

Of Gausman’s 116 strikeouts this season, 83 have come via the splitter. Only Clayton Kershaw’s slider has garnered more strike-threes among individual pitches in baseball this season. And of Gausman's 83 splitter-induced strikeouts, a whopping 81 have been swinging strikes. His splitter’s 49.7% whiff rate is bested only by Jacob deGrom’s slider among pitches that have been thrown at least 300 times.

So where in the world has this splitter been? The truth is it has been there the whole time. Gausman learned the pitch in high school and had always used it as his go-to secondary weapon to pair with his mid-90s fastball. But he's ratcheted its use to a whole new level this season. 

His splitter usage hovered between 16% and 20% in Baltimore, and he featured his slider more consistently as well. Now, you’ll see his slider about 7% of the time, while his splendid splitter is being thrown nearly 40% of the time. It’s not hard to see why. Sometimes it’s as simple as leaning all the way in to your biggest strengths.

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Gausman struggled Tuesday against the rival Dodgers, allowing three earned runs over five innings of work and walking a season-high five batters in the Giants' 3-1 loss. It was one of his worst starts of the season, which only underscores how good he has been. Tuesday's game ended a 12-start streak in which Gausman allowed two earned runs or fewer and was only the second time all season that he walked more than two batters. His ERA rose from 1.49 to 1.68, a mark still second in baseball behind only deGrom's.

Next week, Gausman will in all likelihood be named to his first career All-Star Game, fittingly taking place at Coors Field, about 30 minutes from Grandview High School, where he played his high school ball. If the Giants maintain their tremendous play from the first half and reach the postseason, Gausman will surely be the first guy to get the ball in what would be his first career start in October.

It’s weird to think that a former top-five pick wouldn’t be scratching the surface of his potential until his ninth big-league season, but Gausman’s story as a bona fide ace might be just getting started.

Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He lives in Maryland but is a huge Seattle Mariners fan and loves watching the KBO, which means he doesn't get a lot of sleep. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.

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Major League Baseball

Kevin Gausman

San Francisco Giants

Shohei Ohtani

Baltimore Orioles

Jordan Shusterman