Despite having a four-seam fastball that sits in MLB's bottom five percentile in velocity, Michael McGreevy has posted the National League's sixth best ERA among starters.
At 90.9 mph, Michael McGreevy’s average velocity on his four-seam fastball ranks in MLB’s bottom-five percentile.
However, that’s not as big of an issue to the Cardinals’ standout right-hander as it is to some on the outside who wonder how long he can continue to fool opposing hitters.
McGreevy greeted any concern over the speed of his fastball with a proverbial yawn.
“I’ve only got (six) other pitches to lean on, so that makes pitching a little easier,” said a somewhat sarcastic McGreevy, whose 2.18 ERA ranks sixth in the National League among starting pitchers.
McGreevy (3-2) showed how velocity can sometimes be overrated, especially when you are getting as much movement on pitches as the 25-year-old right-hander has been of late. On the heels of limiting the Dodgers to three hits over six scoreless innings last week at Busch Stadium, McGreevy pitched one of the best games of his young MLB career on Friday night in San Diego. He surrendered only one hit – a fourth-inning single by Jackson Merrill – over six more innings to extend his scoreless streak to a somewhat staggering 13 innings.
Not only was McGreevy pitching 60 miles from where he grew up dreaming of pitching in the big leagues, he also struck out a career-best nine batters and registered a haw-dropping 17 swings and misses. Instead of blowing the Padres away with velocity, McGreevy fooled them with a changeup that got whiffs seven times on the nine that he threw.
“A lot of things were working well last night, but the changeup was definitely one of them, for sure,” McGreevy said during Saturday’s in-game interview on Fox. “We’ve seen a ton of lefties this year and the Guardians stacked nine of them against me. So, to see a bunch of (Padres’) righties, that was nice to see. I was thinking I was going to use my sweeper a lot more, but the changeup was my bread and butter.”
Was it ever? McGreevy’s success with the pitch on Friday dropped hitters’ success against the changeup to 4 of 42 (.095) with 11 strikeouts. Foes have also hit just .103 against his hard-biting sinker and only .176 and .214 against his cutter and four-seam fastball.
McGreevy's movement was never better
Pitch metrics showed that McGreevy’s stuff has never been than it was on Friday at San Diego’s Petco Park. The horizontal break on his sinker was 15 inches on Friday – up four innings over his season average. The same went for his changeup with it averaging 16 inches of horizontal break on Friday – four inches greater than during the season. His four-seam fastball and cutter also greater break on Friday than they have over the season.
McGreevy ranks in MLB’s 85th percentile in walk rate and in the 63rd percentile in hard-hit rate, and he’s allowed just 29 hits over 45 1/3 innings worked this season. However, computer models don’t think he can keep up the success that he’s had at the start of this season with an Expected ERA of 5.08 – nearly three runs more than he’s actually allowed thus far per nine innings.
Velocity, McGreevy reminded earlier this season, can be overstated at times.
“Last year, the harder I threw, the harder they hit me,” he said with a smile. “So, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.”
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