CINCINNATI -- He only has himself to blame, but Davis Martin's literally overnight adaptation of his kick change last summer set unrealistic expectations for how quickly he could adapt a new pitch.
As he spoiled Pete Rose Night at Great American Ballpark on Wednesday with a career-high 6⅔ innings of one-run ball, it was actually his third start with a new slider grip. But it might have been the first time it was worth writing about.
When it debuted against the Houston Astros 12 days earlier, Martin hung one of his new sliders to Jake Meyers, who was cosplaying as Mookie Betts that afternoon and launched it to the left field seats without remorse for what he was doing to this story angle.
"Some were OK," Martin said afterward. "For throwing the pitch two or three days ago, I think there's a lot of things to be happy about with some of the movement metrics, the velo, the consistency, the location. Now there's things we still want to tinker with, but all in all, I think it was a good day with the pitch and it's something I really want to work on and continue to push going forward."
His next time out in Kansas City might have been Martin's worst start of the year to date, and getting chased in the fifth prompted the White Sox coaching staff to dive into his delivery mechanics, the takeaways of which led to his biggest velocity of the season on Wednesday. But after those first two outings, it still felt prudent to gauge how Martin was feeling about the project.
"From start to start, I think there was a really big jump in consistency," Martin said the day after his outing in Kansas City. "The movement profile was much better in the second start. The velocity was really good. We were able to keep it separate from what the cutter was looking like, so now it's two separate pitches again. And I've still got the kick change in my back pocket, so now you have to worry two pitches going opposite directions that are offspeed."
That was the idea, since the slider that had previously been Martin's out-pitch before the kick change came along, the pitch that more or less got him to the majors in 2022, was getting absolutely tattooed early this season. While his cutter, four-seamer and kick change all were getting good-to-great results, opponents entered Wednesday night hitting .409 against Martin's slider with a .818 slugging percentage.
"He just got very sweepy with his slider," said pitching coach Ethan Katz, referring to a two-inch increase in its horizontal movement. "In the past he generated more whiffs and more chase, and right now it's popping more than we'd like and it's like a 10 percent chase pitch right now, which is not what it's been. We'll see what these numbers come out to, but it's going to be harder."
On Wednesday night, everything was harder for Martin. A sizzle reel of his five strikeouts would include a lot of dotting the edges with 96-97 mph heaters that would also be game-changing if that velocity hung around long-term.
"I think just warmer weather, feels good" Martin said, playing coy about the biomechanical deep dive that seems to have actually fueled the velo jump.
And maybe on Wednesday, maybe he didn't do as great of job of distinguishing his slider and cutter, since Statcast tagged the pitch he used for 42 of his 95 offerings on the night as the cutter, compared to just three sliders. Or maybe he just rode a monster offering that neither the Reds nor anyone else had seen before for one of the best outings of his career, piling up 11 whiffs on a version of his slider that sat at 89 mph all night.
"It's more gyro," Katz said. "A little more vert, a little less horizontal, but a lot more velocity."
"That was the slider we've been working on," Martin said postgame. "Today was really good. [Edgar Quero] had a lot of great setups. We were talking between on what we wanted to do and how I can get there. And Q and the catching group was a big part of that. Getting to a good spot and then giving me a good target. We executed really well today."
Coming out of Kansas City, his kick change hadn't been hit hard per se, but in three separate instances, Royals hitters had been able to fight off well-located ones for crucial hits. They didn't disprove the White Sox fundamental belief that Martin can avoid damage on his kick change so long as it's below thigh-high, but it also was a performance that would only be possible if the opposing team was gameplanning around his best pitch.
Older and wiser than his minimal service time would suggest, Martin pointed out that part of his job is to not overreact to well-located sub-90 mph contact on an effective pitch. But also allowed that other teams hunting his kick change might be something he could twist to his advantage.
"I think so," Martin said. "Like anything, if you have information and you can game plan for it, you can use it to your advantage."
As it turns out, the way to use it to his advantage was to flip over to another new weapon against unsuspecting hitters. Martin threw only 11 kick changes on Wednesday, all to the few left-handers that the Reds had lined up against him. And the counter move wasn't so much a new weapon as a restored one.
"It's a different grip to help me regain the feel of what it used to be," Martin said.
With his regained feel, Martin is down to a 3.65 ERA over 49 ⅓ innings of work in his first full season as a major league starter. And once more, he's made his ability for quick, in-season adaption serve as a wrench in the works of any efforts to safely project what he's capable of as a White Sox rotation piece.
It just took him slightly longer this time.
