After working all offseason to cultivate his curveball and develop a 'kick-change,' Cardinals' right-hander Andre Pallante is hoping to distance himself from a disastrous 2025 when he faces the New York Mets on Tuesday.
ST. LOUIS – When Andre Pallante takes the mound against the Mets on Tuesday night, he will be hoping to show that his 2025 nightmare is over and that he can be a reliable starting pitcher for the Cardinals again.
That was the focus all offseason for Pallante, who revamped his pitch arsenal with a new “kick-change” pitch and worked to throw his curveball for more strikes to try and avoid a repeat of a disastrous 2025 season.
Not only did Pallante, 27, see his record dip to 6-15 and his ERA swell to 5.31 in 2025, but he didn’t win any of his last 10 starts over August and September of last season. A darting four-seam fastball that limited foes to a .227 batting average and just eight extra-base hits in 2024 was smacked around to the tune of a .330 average and 35 extra base hits in 2025.
Those struggles sent Pallante into an offseason deep-dive as to what he could do to reverse the course of his career with the Cardinals. In his first start of 2026 on Tuesday, Pallante hopes to be a pitcher who falls into fewer patterns and debuts the changeup as a new out pitch for him.
“I’ve just got to be a lot less predictable out there, kind of like (teammate Michael) McGreevy, who had a lot of success because he can throw seven pitches in any count and I want to be more like that,” Pallante said before Game 1 of the series between the Mets and Cardinals on Monday night. “I want to be able to throw all my pitches in any count. And if I can hold runners closer and keep them from stealing bags, that will help me, too.”
Throwing more changeups and curves for strikes
An early barometer as to potential success for Pallante will be his ability to throw his curveball and changeup for strikes, so that he doesn’t have to rely solely on his fastball when he’s behind in counts.
“The big thing for me is the inclusion of more pitches outside of my four-seam fastball – more curveballs, two-seamers, sliders and the development of that changeup that I’ve been working on,” Pallante said. “I’ll be throwing that pitch more to lefties.
“I kind of cut my fastball, so I was profiled as one of the guys who would be able to throw a kick-change. When I throw it well, it’s come out good (in Spring Training). I am still trying to figure out the proper intensity to throw it. When I throw it too hard, I overthrow it. But the good ones have been really good, and I want to make that my every-day pitch.”
Pallante was sent into the offseason searching for a new pitch after allowing 21 home runs in 2025 – up dramatically over the eight he surrendered in 2024. Unable to depend on his breaking stuff in big counts, Pallante had to depend on his fastball and that led to even more problems. His strikeout rate fell to 15.5 percent in 2025 – a rate that fell into baseball’s bottom fourth percentile
“Velocity has never been a problem for me and actually when I was throwing harder I was having worse results,” said Pallante, whose average fastball velocity was nearly the same in 2025 (94.5 mph) as it was in 2024 (94.6 mph). “So, strength or velocity were not big areas of focus for me. My focus was on how I threw the ball during my bullpens and by throwing more offspeed pitches. That’s how I am going to be pitching in games. So that’s been a really big thing for me all offseason.”
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