Game 6 kicks off on Friday night. Kevin Gausman will play a huge role in determining whether Toronto Blue Jays win his first World Series since he was two years old.
Based on what he's done in the postseason, he should be an attractive prospect for Toronto. Gausman didn't produce a dominant outing like Trey Yesavage in October, but he pitched at least sixth in each of his four playoff starts, posting a 2.55 ERA over 24.2 innings. There are holes to plug in his peripheral numbers, but he got the job done at a time of year when results trump process.
That doesn't mean the process that kept him out of the game isn't important. Gausman projects as an easy-to-understand starter with a high fastball and low splitter combination that beats hitters through execution rather than the element of surprise.
But while that combination is at the core of what he does, the 34-year-old has shaken things up a bit in the playoffs. At first glance, his three-pitch repertoire is deployed approximately the same as in the regular season:
There is a slight shift in the splitter, but in a relatively small sample it does not appear significant. The Gausmann correction only appears when we take things apart with our hands.
Meeting with left wingers
The change here is about as simple as it gets considering Gausman is pretty much a two-pitch guy against lefties, and he's essentially turned his fastball and splitter usage around.
While it may seem intuitive for a veteran to lean toward his best swing-and-miss pitch—especially since it takes his arm away from left-handed hitters—it's an extreme we've never seen before. Gausman never had a month in his career where his split rate was above 50 percent against lefties—he was that way on three occasions (twice in 2019 and once in his rookie season), but in each case he worked out of the bullpen.
Relying on the splitter was a clear positive, as his strike rate against lefties (49.1 percent) was significantly higher than any month of the regular season or campaign overall (36 percent).
One thing that has been noticeable is an increased willingness to use the pitch again and again when facing hitters who are clearly vulnerable.
The best example in this playoffs is Jorge Polanco. During the regular season, Polanco hit .217 against the pitch, a Statcast of minus 1. This was the only type of pitch he performed negatively against.
So Gausman gave him split after split in the ALCS, which seemed to contribute to his 0-for-6 performance against the 34-year-old with two outs.
Even after Polanco saw him in the starting lineup twice, Gausman stuck to his guns in Game 7, refusing to deviate from his approach heading into the inning.
Another benefit of Gausman's focus on the splitter against lefties is that it helped him avoid getting hurt early in the count. The traditional modus operandi of a right-hander is to get ahead with a fastball and finish with a splitter, but he has been a little less predictable early against lefties in the postseason, posting solid results.
In his first two innings from bats to left in the postseason, Gausman threw 57.1% of his splitters, while opponents hit .214 without hitting an extra base. During the regular season, opponents hit .432 and he threw 56.7 percent of his fastballs.
The playoff sample size is small, but hitters expected early scoring from Gausman, which is not what they got in October. That may have helped prevent the fireworks the Blue Jays produced against Blake Snell on Wednesday that changed the course of the series. Over the past two years (including the 2025 playoffs), left-handers have hit just two home runs off Gausman's splitter.
Facing right-handed hitters
This is where things get a little more complicated. The idea of ​​adding more left-handed splitters is intuitive. Doubling the speed of Gausman's slider when it is clearly his worst pitch is not a layup.
Here we see a willingness to sometimes lean on the weaknesses of hitters rather than the strengths of the right-hander. The splitter still works against righties—he accounted for seven of Gausman's eight Ks against right-handed hitters in October—but some opponents have sparked a newfound willingness to shelve him.
In the ALCS, three Seattle Mariners saw a heavy dose of sliders and almost no splitters: Randy Arozarena, Eugenio Suarez and Victor Robles. The trio's pitch mix looked like this:
It's a radical departure from what we typically see from Gausman, and these hitters went 1-for-11 in the series with a home run off a fastball up the middle. The sliders he turned them led to three outs, including Robles' called out.
The idea itself isn't anything remarkable, but Gausman's increasing willingness to use it in certain matchups has proven useful. His usage wasn't as prominent in Game 2 of the World Series, but there is one hitter worth watching on Friday to see if he goes for a fastball-slider mix: Mookie Betts.
Gausman threw just eight pitches to Betts in his first World Series at-bats, including two sliders and no splitters. This season, the future Hall of Famer destroyed splitters (.500 AVG, .800 SLG) with much more modest results against sliders (.228 AVG, .406 SLG). He also had his worst overall offensive record against breaking balls since his rookie season:
As a 13-year MLB veteran with tremendous success, Gausman doesn't seem like an obvious candidate to tinker with a proven formula in the biggest starts of his career. Add to that the fact that he has a three-pitch repertoire that limits possible changes in approach, and you'd think he'd be the perfect “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” type.
However, during this playoff series, he used his plan of attack in a way we've never seen before, to great effect. Gausman reacted to his opponents' strengths and used their expectations of him against them.
The result wasn't as historic as some of his teammates, but he kept his team in every game he played in October. That's a starting pitcher's primary job, and if he does it again, there's a good chance he'll be the final starter for the 2025 Blue Jays on their way to a World Series title.
