Martinez sticking with Voth, wants him to trust fastball more

Davey Martinez hadn't yet met with Austin Voth when he held his daily pregame Zoom session with reporters this afternoon. But the Nationals manager was more than willing to share in advance what he planned to say to his struggling right-hander.

"I can tell you now: I'm not going to give up on him," Martinez said.

Despite a consistent pattern of ineffectiveness in his first five starts of the season - typically coming the second time he has to face an opposing lineup - it appears Voth will remain in the Nats rotation for now. The answer, Martinez believes, isn't a change of role but rather a change of approach.

After watching video of Monday night's start against the Marlins, in which Voth cruised through his first two innings but struggled in the third and then got rocked in the fourth before he was unceremoniously pulled, Martinez noted the 28-year-old's tendency to get away from his bread-and-butter pitch: his fastball.

"Here's a guy that I've known used to attack the strike zone with fastballs," the manager said. "Up. Down and away. Yesterday, he threw an excessive amount of sliders. I've never seen him do that before. So I'm going to talk to him about why he did that and just tell him: 'Hey, I want you to just be the Austin Voth that personally I fell in love with. And that's attacking the strike zone with your fastball.' "

Voth indeed has used his fastball with less frequency this season: He threw it 60.4 percent of the time as a rookie, only 57.7 percent so far in 2020. It was more noticeable Monday night: He threw only 54.8 percent fastballs while throwing his slider a whopping 31.5 percent of the time.

In four prior starts this season, only 9.6 percent of Voth's pitches were sliders. Last season, he threw it only 11.3 percent of the time. And for good reason: Opponents are hitting .429 off that pitch in 2020.

Voth has had far more success with his curveball - opponents hit .176 off it last season and only .143 off it this season - but on Monday he shelved it for his less-effective slider.

All of this points to a larger issue: Voth's fastball velocity is down, and because of that, he appears not to trust it as much, especially the second time through the batting order.

"Right now, I'm seeing a different Austin Voth go out there, where he feels like the second time around, he's got to start tricking guys," Martinez said. "He doesn't. His stuff is good. His fastball's good. Let's just continue to throw strike one and utilize his fastball to get to his secondary pitches."

Voth's success is shorter spurts - his first-inning ERA is 1.80, compared to a whopping 19.49 in the fourth inning - might make some wonder if he'd be better-suited to come out of the bullpen, or even be used as an "opener" who only faces a lineup once and is automatically replaced, no matter how well he pitches.

Martinez admitted he and pitching coach Paul Menhart have been brainstorming such ideas, but for now they are committed to Voth as a starter. With Stephen Strasburg injured and Joe Ross sitting out the season, there aren't any experienced alternatives in the organization, though next week's trade deadline affords general manager Mike Rizzo an opportunity to acquire veteran rotation help if he's willing to pay the hefty price.

In the meantime, Voth is on schedule to make his next start Saturday against the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

"We need him," Martinez said. "We said this coming in: He earned the right to be the fifth starter. We've got to fix him. Hopefully we'll get him going this week, and hopefully his next outing will be better."