Enigmatic Gore seeks more of the good, less of the bad

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – When MacKenzie Gore returned home in October and contemplated his season, the Nationals left-hander focused on the two extremes he experienced.

“Some good and some bad,” he said. “I’ve really just got to figure out why I was good at times, and why I wasn’t. Fix that and go into this year.”

Gore truly did pitch at both ends of the spectrum in 2023. He was either really good, or he was the opposite. Rarely did his outings fall somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps the best statistical evidence of that: In his 17 wins and no-decisions, Gore posted a 2.58 ERA and 1.282 WHIP. In his 10 losses, those numbers skyrocketed to 7.71 and 1.612.

“Just trying to figure out how to have less of those big starts where it’s like six runs or more,” he said. “It definitely helps you have confidence that it’s in there. It’s just: Can you do it for 25 starts, or whatever it is?”

Consistency, then, is the theme being pounded into Gore’s head for 2024. Nobody expects him to dominate every time he takes the ball. He should, however, be expected to minimize the damage when things aren’t going well, ensuring mediocre starts don’t devolve into wretched starts.

How does the soon-to-be 25-year-old get there? After contemplating things over the winter, he thinks a lot of his struggles boiled down not to the execution of his pitches but the pitches he chose to throw in particular situations.

“More how we were using things, not necessarily how good or bad the pitches were,” he said. “Some pitch shape adjustments, too, nothing crazy. Little things like that. But I’d say the biggest thing was usage, how and where we use things.”

Though Gore’s struggles often were associated with a loss of command, that didn’t necessarily translate into walks. He actually lowered his walk rate from the previous year, from an unsightly 12 percent to a more respectable 9.8 percent (which was still worse than the league average of 8.4 percent).

The lack of command was more concerning early in counts. Gore’s first-pitch strike rate was only 58.6 percent. And when he fell behind in the count, he was hit hard, with opponents slugging a whopping .642 in those situations.

“It’s all about throwing strikes, you know,” manager Davey Martinez said. “We want these guys to pound the strike zone and get outs early.”

Getting ahead in the count also gives a pitcher the freedom to open up his repertoire, as opposed to feeling compelled to throw fastballs. Gore spent his offseason working directly with Keibert Ruiz – the two both now live in South Florida – and the two are starting to get on the same page more when it comes to pitch selection, a critical component of the pitcher-catcher relationship.

There’s only so much bullpen work that can be done, though. Eventually, it boils down to implementing these changes in games. As with everything else, there’s no substitute for major-league experience.

“Exactly. Experience … you don’t want to hear it, but it is important,” Gore said. “It’s figuring out who you are. Experience is very important.”

Gore is a noted perfectionist, and he’s apt to dwell on the negatives more than the positives. But he did find time to note the good things he did last season, most notably his ability to stay healthy and make every scheduled start until a blister on his middle finger ended his season a couple weeks early.

“That was huge,” he said. “Really in my career, I’ve never thrown that much. You could argue that was the most important thing going into last year: I got to make, what, 27 starts? Now we can build from there. It was pretty important.”

There shouldn’t be any hard restrictions on Gore’s workload this year. If he can reach 180 innings, the Nationals will probably let him do it.

The key, of course, is making sure as many of those innings as possible are good innings.

“Really just being the best version of myself,” Gore said. “I do think I can be pretty good if I get the most out of what I’m capable of. That’s all I’m trying to do: Best version of myself. And if I do that, we should be pretty good.”