When a dominant new pitcher emerges, Kevin Kiermaier is eager to face him and see what the hype is about.
The Toronto Blue Jays center fielder had that same reaction with Félix Bautista when the Orioles closer broke out as one of the best relief pitchers in baseball, and Kiermaier has now faced the towering right-hander four times.
Does he still have that same enthusiasm?
“I’d gladly never face him again,” Kiermaier said with a laugh.
In his second major league season, Bautista is an All-Star, earning a trip to Seattle after a stellar first half in which he saved 23 games, posted a 1.07 ERA and put himself on pace to shatter strikeout records by punching out 18.0 batters per nine innings.
Despite his surprise breakout last season, it’s not a mystery why Bautista is having the success he is. It’s mostly simple: He throws 100 mph and has a nasty splitter.
“He’s one of the best closers in the game for a reason,” Kansas City Royals infielder Maikel Garcia said.
But hitters around the league like Kiermaier and Garcia say there are more layers than just his fastball velocity and splitter movement that make Bautista so difficult to hit — from his arm angle to his extension to his intimidating presence.
At 6-foot-8, when Bautista is standing on the 10-inch mound, it puts him 7 feet, 6 inches above home plate. That in addition to his over-the-top release point are key factors that hitters say make Bautista difficult to adjust to compared with other pitchers. His release point of 6.96 feet ranks second in the majors and is nearly a foot higher than league average.
“I just think it comes down to how big he is and how hard he throws,” Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. said. “That’s what’s different. It comes from how he has a really high extension. He’s throwing the ball 7 1/2 feet out front, so the ball is really getting there quicker. And he’s already throwing 100 [mph].”
That high release point is what makes Bautista’s fastball-splitter combination so lethal. His 88.3 mph splitter, which he throws 25.7% of the time, has an expected batting average against of .086 and an expected slugging percentage of .131 based on quality of contact, according to Baseball Savant. Opposing hitters whiff on 57.9% of the swings they take against Bautista’s splitter — the fifth-highest rate for any pitch in the majors. His overall whiff rate of 44.6% ranks first in the sport and is nearly 20 percentage points above league average, while his 50.9% strikeout rate is 7.7 points higher than any other hurler.
His 99.2 mph fastball, which ranks fifth in the majors and reached up to 103.4 mph this season, isn’t dominant just because of its velocity, though. With just minus-7.5 inches of vertical movement, Bautista’s fastball drops less than any other four-seamer — almost defying gravity.
“There’s so much vertical carry,” said Kiermaier, who is 1-for-4 with two strikeouts off Bautista. “Physics won’t let a fastball actually go up, but certain guys with elite carry like him, it just stays on the same plane. Most guys it kind of comes down slightly and that’s what you’re used to. You swing under his pitches every time because your eyes tell you that it’ll be [lower].”
His splitter is what Bautista uses to keep hitters off-balanced and get crucial swings and misses, but his fastball is his bread and butter. He throws his heater 70.1% of the time, and for good reason. According to Baseball Savant’s run values, Bautista’s four-seamer is tied for the best pitch from any reliever at minus-14 runs. Yennier Cano’s sinker, which earned the right-hander a spot alongside Cano at the All-Star Game, is one of the pitches tied with Bautista.
Despite his splitter being one of the best offerings in the sport, Garcia said the two times he’s faced Bautista (both strikeouts), he’s hunted for fastballs rather than waiting for the offspeed pitch. Witt, who is 0-for-2 against him, said the same thing, but the last time he faced Bautista, he barely got the opportunity to jump on a fastball.
“He threw me four straight splitters,” said Witt, who struck out swinging after taking a first-pitch 101 mph heater on the outside corner. “That was one of those where you kind of just got to tip your cap.”
So, which pitch is actually harder to hit: the blazing heater at the top of the zone, or the drop-off-the-table splitter?
“Oh,” Blue Jays right fielder George Springer said with a laugh, “they’re both hard to hit.”
Unlike the vast majority of hitters, Springer has actually experienced some success off Bautista. In four plate appearances, Springer is 1-for-2 with a double and two walks, but that won’t give him much extra confidence when facing the closer in the future.
“There’s no way to say which one is easier, because I don’t really think that there’s an answer,” Springer added. “You’ve just got to hope he makes a mistake and hit it from there.”
Kiermaier, meanwhile, said he thinks the easier pitch to do damage on — in relative terms, of course — is the splitter.
“I think you have a better shot at the split,” the former Tampa Bay Rays outfielder said. “When I faced him, I have to hopefully just try to see something up and over the plate. But his fastball is absolutely electric. You’ll face guys who throw 100, but it’s very comfortable for him. It looks like 106 because he’s so big and straight over the top and tremendous carry. He is the elite of the elite. You just have to hope that you guess right and that you kind of swing where you think the pitch is gonna be.
“No one likes facing him. When he’s in the game, your chances are what they are at that point. Good luck.”
What might be the most surprising part of Bautista’s season so far is the fact that he’s getting better as it progresses. After walking 16% of the batters he faced over his first 25 innings, the 28-year-old has walked just 3.4% in his past 17 frames, including zero free passes in June to earn the American League Reliever of the Month award for the second time this year.
“He’s getting better and better every day with the command,” New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres said. “That combo, fastball and his split, is really, really difficult to hit. It’s not easy to face him, especially when he throws that hard and he’s throwing strikes.”
If Bautista takes the mound at T-Mobile Park on Tuesday night, it’ll be his first time pitching in an All-Star Game. It likely won’t be his last.
“He’s one of the most dominant pitchers in the game,” he said, “and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
An All-Star Game laden with Orioles players. For the first time since 2016, the Midsummer Classic will feature more than one Oriole. Catcher Adley Rutschman will return to the Pacific Northwest to play in his first All-Star Game. Left fielder Austin Hays will start in the outfield, and Cano and Bautista will likely pitch out of the bullpen. After the break, the Orioles open a six-game homestand with a weekend series versus the Miami Marlins, who ended the first half with one of the best records in the National League.
The big inning. The Orioles opened the week going five straight games without scoring more than four runs. In their final five games of the first half, they scored four or more runs in six separate innings. A four-run sixth propelled Baltimore to a comeback win over the Yankees on Wednesday, and they clinched a series split Thursday with back-to-back innings of seven and five runs in the third and fourth, respectively. A six-run second was all the Orioles needed to win Saturday, and they repeated Thursday’s outburst Sunday versus the Minnesota Twins by scoring seven in the fifth and six in the sixth.
Supposedly, Tyler Wells. Earning an All-Star nomination as a starting pitcher is difficult given the number of excellent options in the AL. However, Wells ended his first half not just as the Orioles’ best starting pitcher but as one of the most effective starters in the AL, although not good enough to earn an All-Star bid. He pitched at least five innings in all 18 of his outings, and ended the half with eight straight allowing two or fewer earned runs. His 3.18 ERA ranks 10th in the AL, while his 0.927 WHIP is the best among MLB starters.
As excellent as the final week of the first half was for the Orioles, it was just as so for their farm system. Jackson Holliday and Heston Kjerstad both made their mark on the MLB All-Star Futures Game in Seattle. Double-A Bowie infielder Coby Mayo was named the Eastern League Player of the Month after posting with a 1.178 OPS in June, and Triple-A Norfolk right-hander Grayson Rodriguez won the International League’s Pitcher of the Month award after going 4-0 with a 2.22 ERA in five June starts. Mayo and right-hander Chayce McDermott were then rewarded with promotions to Triple-A, and Holliday was bumped up to Double-A.
Baltimore Sun reporter Nathan Ruiz contributed to this article.
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