Miles Mikolas regrips changeup to 'keep lefties honest,' finds success: Cardinals Extra

He liked what he felt and carried it into a bullpen session at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles during the Cardinals’ recent West Coast trip. The session showed the feel was there. The TrackMan metrics provide the data to back up its effectiveness.

“It’s a similar grip. It’s just a different focus on how I want to feel it coming off my hand,” Mikolas said postgame Friday. “I’m a big ‘feel’ guy. So once I felt it come off my fingers a certain way, and I saw the action that I got when I wanted right then and there, I’m like, ‘All right, I’m going to throw 12 of these’ and just try to keep that feeling and kind of lock that feeling, imprint it in my brain a little bit and just kind of go at it from there.”

The grip on his off-speed pitch has helped him provide consistency on the mound.

Since the start of May, Mikolas has posted a 3.13 ERA across 23 innings in four starts. His most recent outing after posting a 5.97 ERA in his first six starts of the year came Saturday when he threw a season-high seven innings vs. the Dodgers and allowed three runs.

He retired the first 10 Dodgers batters he faced before allowing a double to Freddie Freeman with one out in the second inning. All three of the runs Mikolas allowed came on a home run from Mikolas’ former Nova Southeastern University teammate J.D. Martinez in the sixth inning.

“I felt like (the performance) was exactly what we’re used to seeing with him where he was able to throw all of his pitches for strikes, and he was able to throw them in any count,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said Sunday. “That’s what makes him successful. If he doesn’t have his changeup or doesn’t mix in enough of his curveball, we saw that earlier in his first couple outings, then the rest of the stuff doesn’t play the same.

“So for him to feel comfortable with that changeup allows all the other stuff — it becomes more unpredictable. You can’t eliminate pitches.”

Mikolas said the off-speed pitch has been beneficial in neutralizing lefties. A start at Fenway Park provided an example of that.

Mikolas, who said his changeup can sometimes be registered as a sinker on pitch tracking systems such as Statcast, leaned heavily on it in his May 14 start against the Red Sox. On the road against a lefty-heavy Boston lineup, Statcast tracked at least 12 changeups from Mikolas as he tossed six innings and allowed one run.

“They (the Red Sox) have so many lefties that you kind of have to use it even just to show it, and it turned out to be something I really liked throwing, and it gives me something moving away from a lefty that kind of looks like a sinker but it’s not,” Mikolas said. “It’s been big to help keep the lefties honest, a little bit.”

After allowing a .563 slugging percentage to left-handed hitters in 64 at-bats in March and April, Mikolas has kept lefty swingers to a .395 slugging percentage in 38 at-bats to lefties since the start of May. He’s also lowered the average exit velocity allowed to lefties from 92.3 mph average in April to 90.6 mph in May, according to Statcast.

“I’ve been throwing my changeup a lot more to lefties, which I kind of like,” Mikolas said. “I’ve been getting some good ground balls and some awkward swings on it. But mainly just keeping the ball down. If I can keep the ball down when it needs to be and elevate when there’s an opportunity, that’s the key.”

Gorman in the clutch

On top of Nolan Gorman’s eighth-inning go-ahead, three-run home run Saturday that helped lift the Cardinals to a 6-5 win over the Dodgers being his seventh go-ahead home run of the season, it was Gorman’s sixth homer to come in the eighth or ninth inning. Those six home runs positioned Gorman for the league lead in homers hit in the eighth and ninth inning entering Sunday.

“There’s a lot of randomness in this sport, but I will say there’s a certain heartbeat that allows you to have more success in those situations,” Marmol said. “There’s certain guys that, and I’ve articulated it this way before, there’s certain guys that run towards the tough moments and the tough at-bat and the tough pitch to be made, and there’s people that run away from it. There is something to that in my opinion.”

Gorman’s absence from the Cardinals’ starting lineup Sunday against left-hander Clayton Kershaw was a planned day off. Marmol hinted that Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt could receive off-days soon as the Cardinals hit the road for their next seven games and continue their stretch of 19 consecutive games before being off on May 31.

Pitching updates

Righty Dakota Hudson was activated from the injured list for Class AAA Memphis and started Sunday. He allowed three runs (one earned) in two innings. It was his first start since April 19 after being sidelined because of a neck injury.

• Matthew Liberatore’s next start will be determined based on his usage out of the bullpen, Marmol said.

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