MacKenzie Gore had a really weird outing

The Washington Nationals ace had his strikeout stuff going, but when he gave up contact it was hard

MacKenzie Gore had a bizarre outing in the Nationals 4-3 win over the Orioles. In fact, it was something never done before. No pitcher had ever gone fewer than four innings while allowing at least 10 hits and striking out at least nine until last night.

Honestly, if there was anyone to do this, Gore would be the sort of pitcher to do it. This outing is a good summary of Gore’s strengths and flaws. It really was like a parody of a MacKenzie Gore start.

As you would expect from Gore, he was generating whiffs at will. His 21 whiffs were the most of any pitcher last night, a list Gore regularly tops. After his nine strikeout night, he now has the most strikeouts of any pitcher in baseball, with Zack Wheeler being 10 K’s behind him.

MacKenzie Gore is one of the great strikeout artists in baseball. That is a very important quality for pitchers to have. In this era, most great starting pitchers get a lot of K’s. Gore’s curveball, slider, changeup, and cutter all have whiff percentages over 45%. That is seriously impressive and is how you become an elite starting pitcher.

However, as last night proved, Gore is not there yet. He threw 102 pitches in 3.2 innings and was laboring all night. When Orioles hitters were making contact, it was a hit most of the time. Some of this was bad luck and some bad defense by the Nats, but not all of it.

Most of those hits were clean hits on well struck balls. Gore’s babip of .379 is high, but there is a reason his career mark is .331. He gives up a lot of hard contact and does not avoid barrels. Gore’s average exit velocity allowed and hard hit% is in the 8th percentile. His ground ball percentage is also in the 22nd percentile, so a lot of that hard contact is in the air as well.

Gore needs to solve this problem if he wants to become an ace. As is, Gore is already a frustrating 2 or 3 starter who puts up big strikeout numbers. However, we all know he can be more than this.

A potential solution for this would be introducing a sinker into his arsenal. He should not throw it more than his four-seamer, but it would be a good add to his mix. Gore needs a pitch that can get quick outs, especially on the ground. A sinker would be a way to do that. I used to think Gore adding a sinker would be silly because his four-seamer is his bread and butter. However, he needs something to get suboptimal contact.

Right now hitters are batting .337 against his four-seamer and he is throwing it 48.4% of the time. Maybe adding a sinker he could throw about 20% of the time would be helpful. It would probably take away from his strikeout numbers, but he needs to sacrifice some whiff for weaker contact.

While last night was an extreme example, it highlighted everything that is right about MacKenzie Gore, but also everything that is wrong with him. He is an elite strikeout artist, but he kind of has to be to have any success because he cannot limit hard contact.

Gore’s breaking stuff has been awesome this season and it was again tonight. However, his fastball has been getting hit around and he needs a way to generate weak contact. Maybe a 3.2 inning, 10 hit, 9 strikeout performance is the wakeup call Gore needs to realize he needs to change things up. He has ace potential, he just needs to find a way to limit the hard contact if he wants to get there.