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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey everyone, Sho Ali here with you. Welcome back to another edition of Jays Talk Field Access on the Sportsnet Radio Network. These are our conversations with players and coaches from your Toronto Blue Jays, whether it's myself or Ben Shulman who are conducting these chats. We'll be bringing these to you a few times a month until the end of the season.
Sunday is not one of our regular days for publishing the field access pods, if only because, you know, we always have games to do on Sundays and we'll get the, you know, Jay saw classic additions out on Saturdays and Sundays for you most times, but a rain out in Chicago today means the Jays wrap up a four and one road trip through Boston and Chi town.
They'll get back in action tomorrow, Monday, for the homestand that will see the Astros, Rangers, and Mets all come to town. So I thought this was a good time to give you some of our chats. First, I caught up with Kevin Gosman the day after one of his starts. This was in Toronto. He was very generous with his time.
He did speak about how he came to use the splitter, amongst other things, which I thought was really interesting. Shane Bieber was also in town. This was before he went back to Buffalo for his last rehab stint. It was before the road trip. Shane talking to Ben on the field before the team went to Boston.
And then a few days ago, Ben also caught up with reliever Jeff Hoffman in the Jays dugout as well. He was also very generous with his time. So here we go. In order, Kevin Gosman, Shane Bieber, and Jeff Hoffman on the latest edition of Jays Talk Field Access. Coverage of Blue Jays baseball continues on the Sportsnet Radio Network.
Show Ali here with you, and I'm joined by Blue Jays starter Kevin Gossman. Kevin, how are you? Thanks for doing this. I'm good, of course. Thanks for having me. So, Kevin, I wanted to chat a little bit about, not necessarily only this year, but your career to a certain extent. And I wanted to start with talking about the Splitter.
And you and I are roughly the same age, actually, so we probably watched... Some of the same guys growing up. I mean, Roger Clemens threw the splitter. Obviously, he was a Blue Jay for a couple years. John Smoltz, Kurt Schilling, I think, threw the splitter as well. So all guys were pretty prolific guys in the 90s. The pitch was pretty popular in the 1980s. And then it kind of just disappeared.
No one really threw the splitter for a while. I don't know if you knew this, but... By 2016, less than 2% of all pitches thrown in baseball was the split. I think it was like 1.4%. And now here we are 10 years later and it's back, right? I mean, your teammate Trace Savage throws a pretty nasty one. I mean, pitchers in Japan are doing it. Yamamoto, Sasaki, we know that as well.
And now here we are. I am curious for you how you decided to get into throwing a pitch as such a huge part of your arsenal when it was essentially historically unpopular. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Kevin Gausman share about his career and pitching techniques?
And this was at my old house. I had a pond kind of in my backyard. And there's still there's probably 50 balls in that in that pond from from just COVID alone. And I'm just working on my split and looking at the metrics and figuring out, okay, that one was a really good one. Why was that one really good? Looking at the camera, okay, my thumb was here. And then it just kind of really took off.
And, you know, my time in Atlanta was short. I went to the Reds, pitched out of the bullpen, and they kind of doubled down and was like, if you're pitching out of the bullpen, just throw a fastball split. Had a ton of success. And then I give a lot of credit to the Giants because, you know, at the time, 19 ā
You know, kind of thinking I might be out of the game, might be a reliever from that point going forward. And they were a team that, you know, hey, we want you to start and we want you to pitch just like you did out of the bullpen with the Reds. I was like, and still at the time, this is still kind of crazy because I'm like... well, why do you think this is going to work?
And they're like, well, our numbers think it's going to play. Every simulation we have says this is going to work. They're right. And they're right. And that kind of goes back to COVID. That was before COVID. I'm having a really good spring with them. COVID happens. And then I just double down on that, throwing my bullpens in the backyard. I'm throwing maybe one or two sliders.
It's just fastball split. I'm just working on that. And then when we come back, I only make 10 starts in 2020, but really good. You know, then have a great year in 21 and, you know, really that pitch has really taken off for me. My second half of my career has been way different than my first and it's specifically because of that pitch. And you look at the usage, it's just gone up and up.
You mentioned it a couple times and I remember you had gone to the 2000 career milestone strikeout earlier this year. Congratulations on that. big milestone. Not many active players have reached that milestone. Thank you.
I remember after the start, you had said in your post-game availability that your career has not been, I'm paraphrasing here, so you can correct me if I'm wrong, not all sunshine and lollipops, so you can appreciate a milestone like that a little bit more.
I am curious, along with the split becoming a huge part of your career in the latter half, I'm curious how you've evolved, even as a person, pitcher, from Orioles, Braves, Reds, to Giants, and of course now here at Blue Jays.
It's
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