The 2024 Orioles rotation has had such an up and down year with injuries, poor starts and questionable situations.
It’s nice to see when a young rookie has a career night, especially when said rookie has had a struggling season. In this case, it was Cade Povich on September 3, 2024, against the Chicago White Sox.
Povich put together an absolute gem, going 7.1 innings, giving up just five hits and striking out 10 batters. The 24-year-old would pick up the win, and it would be a shutout performance for him, just the second time in his career in which he did not give up a run.
While all that is great to see, let’s take a deeper dive into Povich’s performance on Tuesday. He did some things differently, and it might be something to track when he takes the mound moving forward.
The main difference that Povich had comes with breaking down his pitches. The key was his curveball.
Povich’s curve has been one of his worst pitches this year. It’s his second most used pitch, and batters are hitting .432 on that pitch with a .682 slugging.
That wasn’t the case this go around, as the White Sox only had one hit on the curve. The primary reason why is because of his spin rate.
Povich’s average spin rate on his curve is 2430, but on Tuesday, his average spin rate was 2545, which is an increase of 115 RPM. Uping the spin rate made the curve a more dangerous pitch because instead of it just being this dipping pitch, it had a little more rotational movement.
The curve was the only pitch that had major changes. His other four pitches stayed around the same in every statcast metric or had minimal changes between today and his career thus far. Povich’s changeup was still causing havoc with a 44% whiff percentage, and his four-seamer was still averaging 92 mph and still caused problems despite four hits against it.
The kid had himself a career night, and after taking a bit of a deeper dive, it’s obvious that the main factor was the adjustments he made to his curve. That’s key to look at moving forward because his curve being that effective after being his worst pitch for multiple starts might be the change he needs to show just how good he is.
What are your thoughts on Povich’s performance last night? Let us know in the comments below! Make sure to follow The Baltimore Battery on Facebook, Twitter (X) and TikTok, and use the hashtag #baltimorebattery when sharing our content!
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