Kevin

Gausman

Gausman did well to hang on for this quality start. He was up to 55 pitches after the Braves batted around in the second inning with three runs home. Gausman was visibly uncomfortable in the Atlanta humidity and was sweating through his jersey as that inning mercifully ended. Yet, he turned his outing around largely thanks to some batted ball luck and finding the command of his splitter. It forced 10 swings-and-misses as it continued to disappear below the strike zone. While not comfortable, this version of Gausman is palatable. He’s scheduled to face the Mets at home next time out.

Gausman allowed four hits, walked four and struck out four. It’s actually just the second time this year that he’s walked as many as four. Gausman entered the night with a 12-9 record, identical to his season mark a year ago. He finished the night 12-10, which was identical to his season mark from two years ago. He’s now 100-101 for his career.

Hello?! Gausman looked like the best version of himself here. His fastball command was on-point low in the zone and set up his splitter beautifully. This is also the same Angels lineup that struck out 12 times against Bowden Francis on Saturday, but the sharper command along with 20 swings-and-misses is a worthwhile reason to get more excited about Gausman moving forward. He’ll be tested in his next scheduled start against the Twins in Minnesota.

Gausman surrendered five hits, including a fourth-inning solo homer to TJ Friedl, and was lifted after a pair of baserunners reached safely to open the sixth inning on a dropped third strike and a single. He tallied five strikeouts and only issued a pair of walks. The strikeouts have mostly been there for the 33-year-old veteran righty this season, but he’s backslid a ton from a run-prevention standpoint with his highest single-season ERA since splitting the 2019 campaign between the Braves and Reds. He’ll bring an underwhelming 4.24 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and 131/43 K/BB ratio across 144 1/3 innings (25 starts) into a favorable home matchup on Saturday against the Angels, who he shut out for seven innings his last time out.

Gausman’s strikeout rate has come down of late, but he’s also given up less hard contact, which thus far has proved to be a worthy tradeoff. He moved to 11-8 with a 4.20 ERA with his fifth straight win tonight.

An odd outing from Gausman, in that he finished with just two strikeouts. It’s the 21st time in Gausman’s career that he’s completed eight innings, and the only other time he did so with so few strikeouts was on July 1, 2018. Gausman has a 3.70 ERA in six starts since the beginning of June, lowering his overall mark from 4.75 to 4.42.

It’s starting to feel like the Gausman we’d grown used to the last few seasons is truly gone. Ahead 7-2 in the third inning, he let the Yankees right back in this game with a fifth inning rally that knocked him out of this game just one out shy of qualifying for the win. His fastball is incredibly ordinary when it sits around 94 MPH and hitters don’t chase his splitter like they once did. With that and never truly developing a third pitch, this is who Gausman is now.

A triple by Marcus Semien to lead off the game followed by a wild pitch would bring a run in for Texas in the first inning. Wyatt Langford drove in a second run with a double in the third before Adolis García knocked in a third with a base hit. Gausman settled in for six more scoreless innings, retiring 18 consecutive batters for a complete game with eight strikeouts on 120 pitches. The 33-year-old right-hander will take a 4.44 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and a 117/32 K/BB ratio across 119 2/3 innings into a start against the Yankees in New York on Friday.

Gausman continues to struggle this season because he has seemingly lost command of his splitter, which is putting too much pressure on his four-seam fastball. On Sunday, Gausman had just a 23 percent zone rate and 17 percent CSW with the splitter, and the Tigers were able to pounce on his fastball, which earned just three whiffs on 29 swings. Until Gausman finds the command of his splitter, we could continue to see inconsistent performances. He’ll now carry a 4.5 ERA into a tough start against the Rangers.

Gausman was staked to a three-run lead before ever taking the mound on Thursday afternoon at Oracle Park and nearly wound up giving it all back when he surrendered a two-run shot to Heliot Ramos in the opening frame. He managed to settle in afterwards, keeping San Francisco’s lineup off the scoreboard over his final six innings of work, allowing just four baserunners during that span. He finished with three strikeouts and didn’t hand out a free pass. He hasn’t come close to replicating last year’s likely career year, but he’s remained a solid innings-eater for fantasy managers that’s still capable of delivering the occasional double-digit strikeout effort. He’ll bring a pedestrian 4.50 ERA, 1.31 WHIP and 104/27 K/BB ratio across 104 innings (19 starts) into next week’s All-Star break.