Gray adds another breaking ball to growing repertoire

HOUSTON – The ninth inning of Wednesday night’s game at Minute Maid Park featured enough drama and twists and turns to capture every ounce of attention afforded the Astros’ 5-4 victory over the Nationals.

It also rendered everything that happened prior to the final inning moot, even though there were a few significant developments throughout the bulk of this game. Most notably, Josiah Gray’s seven-inning start and another new pitch he unveiled along the way.

Gray didn’t enjoy anything close to his best results of the season, charged with four earned runs thanks to a two-run double in the first and back-to-back homers surrendered in the fourth. But the right-hander did do a lot of things well, better than he had for much of the season to date.

He didn’t issue a walk for the first time since Aug. 10, 2022 against the Cubs. He threw 66 of his 95 pitches for strikes. He completed seven innings for only the third time this year.

For those reasons, Gray still viewed this as a positive outing, despite the fact he was due to take the loss until his teammates rallied in the top of the ninth.

“I’m definitely looking at the process, and the results are the results,” he said. “I’m never going to get too bent out of shape about the results anymore. I’m sticking true to what I do, and my process. And the next one will be a lot better.”

Gray’s positive development since an up-and-down 2022 season has much to do with his changing repertoire. He is throwing fewer four-seam fastballs, recognizing that pitch caused him the most problems in the past. On Wednesday, he threw only 10 four-seamers, focusing instead on his sinker, which he threw 36 times (25 times for strikes).

He also tweaked his growing arsenal of breaking balls, introducing a sweeper that surprisingly became one of his go-to pitches.

Clocking in at 80-83 mph, with more horizontal movement than his high-80s slider or cutter and a higher spin rate than his downward-breaking curveball, the sweeper has become an increasingly popular pitcher around baseball. Gray said he had been tinkering with it recently in the bullpen and finally felt comfortable enough to deploy it during a game against a potent Astros lineup.

“It’s just going to be another weapon in the arsenal,” he said. “I think with the more tools we can have, why not? There’s a lot of guys in this league – Chris Bassett is the name that comes right off the top of my head; he’s a guy with a ton of pitches; Yu Darvish as well – that have a lot of success. Why not me? Why not go out there and give the hitter a different look every at-bat and see what you can do, limit hard contact?”

If you’ve lost track, Gray now has thrown seven different types of pitches this season: four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, slider, curveball, changeup and now sweeper. It’s not all that common for a major leaguer to have that varied a repertoire, but he seems determined to try it all, recognizing certain pitches make more sense against certain lineups.

“It’s three different breaking balls that they have to be aware of,” he said. “And I’m going to throw them all in the zone.”