Baltimore Orioles: Why can’t Kevin Gausman be more like Dylan Bundy?

Dylan Bundy is injecting his name into the AL Cy Young conversation, but will Kevin Gausman ever get it together and give the Baltimore Orioles a second ace?

Drafted in the top five in consecutive years in 2011 and 2012, respectively, pitchers Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman were supposed to be the one-two punch that would help lead the Orioles back from the wilderness to the Promised Land of the postseason. Since losing Mike Mussina to free agency after the 2000 season, the Orioles had shuffled from one rebuild to the other, failing to turn numerous top prospects into big-league aces. Bundy, a high-schooler out of Oklahoma, and Gausman, out of LSU, appeared destined to change that.

Both armed with blazing fastballs, Bundy and Gausman were seen as “can’t miss” prospects with multiple plus pitches. For an organization that had been historically bad at developing top arms, the future seemed to hinge on these two flame throwers.

That narrative never quite played out. The Orioles shocked the world in 2012 with phenomenal luck in one-run and extra-inning games, and have been the American League’s winningest team since, despite having mediocre starting pitching and an offense that strikes out and pops up far too often while swinging at just about anything.

The Orioles have made the playoffs three times in the past five years without ever having a true ace. Bundy may finally be changing that this season. He is now 3-1 with a 1.65 ERA, and has gotten by without his best stuff at times. His long history of elbow and shoulder troubles are firmly in the past for now.

At times during his most recent start on Tuesday night, Bundy’s fastball was sitting below 90 mph (this did, of course, have Orioles fans heading to the closest ledge). The dip in velocity lasted only about an inning, and he was eventually touching 93 by the time he left the game.

"“It was probably getting loosened up more, more so than that first and second inning, because I did feel better with my overall body in the third or fourth inning,” Bundy said. “I started to feel better overall. And I think I did notice it a little bit, more life on the ball at the end across the plate.”"

After years of fits and starts, Gausman finally put together a string of dominant starts for the Orioles in the second half last year. He went 8-6 with a 3.10 ERA after the All-Star Game in 2016, and had one stretch of six starts where he went 5-0 with a sparkling 1.59 ERA. With Chris Tillman on the shelf with a shoulder injury, Gausman carried high expectations into his first career start on Opening Day.

After a strong, but wild start on Opening Day, Gausman has now turned in two poor starts in a row, allowing 13 runs and four home runs in his past 13 innings of work. His struggles this year are puzzling, to say the least. His ERA sits at 7.50 as he prepares for his sixth start of the season on Friday night against the New York Yankees

"“Not very good,” he said of his April. “Pretty frustrating, especially being the guy who they gave the ball to Opening Day. It seems like everybody else is really throwing the crap out of the ball, really well right now. And I’m kind of scuffling along. I’ll figure it out. It’ll take maybe another bullpen, and hopefully I’ll come out next start and hit the ground running. But obviously, my first five starts are not very good.”"

In his five seasons in the big leagues with the Orioles, Gausman could never be mistaken for an efficient pitcher. He has needed 8,210 pitches to get through 477.0 innings with the Orioles — over 17 pitches per inning. In 2017, it has taken him just under 20 pitches per inning. Gausman has allowed foul balls at a clip almost two percentage points above the MLB average, while also throwing strikes at a slightly lower rate.

Why would a pitcher who consistently touches 97 mph with his fastball — rare velocity for a starting pitcher — struggle so much to get ahead of hitters and then put them away? Gausman gets himself into considerably more 0-2 counts than the average MLB pitcher.

The answer may lie in his arsenal. The Orioles drafted Gausman in the top five of the draft despite the fact that he did not have a fully functional breaking ball in college. He has waffled back and forth between a slider and a curveball so far in his career, and is currently settled on something that resembles a slider. Gausman also throws a splitter and a changeup that can appear similar at times.

But because Gausman lacks confidence in his breaking pitches, he pigeonholes himself into a very repeatable pitch sequence. A splitter thrown by a right-handed pitcher is not an effective pitch to a right-handed batter, and when used that way, Gausman has given up a .529 slugging percentage. That leaves Gausman with a fastball or a breaking ball against righties. A few years ago, 95-97 on a consistent basis from a starter was unheard of. Now it is common, and Gausman’s heaters do not exhibit much of a wrinkle, if at all. His fastballs are only effective when elevated. He has attempted to add a two-seam fastball this season, but has been unable to harness its movement within the strike zone.

Deception — or at the very least, unpredictability — is what allows the best pitchers to dominate. You cannot get by with pure velocity in this day and age unless you are Noah Syndergaard or Aroldis Chapman. Gausman has nice velocity, but that alone is not enough to live up to his lofty draft status and the mantle of acedom that was draped on his shoulders by the Orioles and their fans.

A right-handed starting pitcher is expected to have an advantage against right-handed batters due to their breaking balls moving away from the hitter. Gausman has allowed an OPS of .794 to righties in his career versus .694 to lefty batters. That’s all due to the fact that he still has not been able to develop a consistent feel for a breaking pitch. His split-fingered fastball to left-handed hitters is majestic to watch, and they have batted just .195 against it with a .254 slugging percentage.

This splitter is a phenomenal pitch, but not always a practical pitch for a starter. Throwing this pitch places extra stress on the elbow, and is also difficult to locate in the strike zone. It’s a strikeout pitch, but not one that you can necessarily throw early in the count when hitters are hunting fastballs.

None of these problems are really Gausman’s doing — it’s on the Orioles pitching coaches to build his breaking ball into a pitch that hitters from the right side have to respect. For now, most of the sliders and curveballs that he throws are easy to pick up out of the hand and lay off because they break early and are clearly not finishing in the strike zone.

Bundy, on the other hand, has full control of five different pitches — four-seam, two-seam, slider, curveball and changeup. Compare his pitch usage chart from Brooks Baseball to Gausman’s and the differences are immediately evident. Gausman is making a more honest attempt to use his slider against left-handed hitters this year, but he is still largely a fastball-only pitcher.

In any count, there is an almost equal chance that Bundy is throwing any of his pitches. Gausman is almost always throwing a fastball to start off a hitter. When the batter is ahead — fastball. When he is ahead — slider or splitter. With two strikes — still fastball. He has two pitches he can throw to a batter from either side of the plate. Bundy has been keeping everyone off balance this year even as he scales back his fastball from the 95-97 levels it sat at when he was drafted out of high school.

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Now five years into his MLB career, it may no longer be fair to expect Kevin Gausman to take the next step or change who he is as a pitcher. Projecting him as a true staff ace with an ERA consistently under or near 3.00 is becoming harder by the day. More than anything, he should be a cautionary tale to scouts, front offices, and pitching coaches. All the arm talent in the world cannot make up for an inability to throw a breaking pitch for a strike consistently at the MLB level. Until he develops this pitch and can throw it for a strike in any count, Gausman will be hemmed into a rudimentary, predictable approach on the mound. So, while Dylan Bundy’s star will continue to take off, Gausman will be left stuck in neutral, frustrating fans and his manager alike, always flashing potential but never putting it all together.