Another impressive outing by John Means with evolving pitch mix

It was impressive last night when, over seven innings, left-hander John Means shut down a hot-hitting Boston Red Sox team. A Red Sox team that scored 30 runs the previous three games and was averaging 6.1 runs the previous 16.

A Boston team that, while going 8-3 over its previous 11 games, led the majors in batting average (.295), OBP (.393) and OPS (.872). A Boston team that was facing Means for the second time this year. Last night, the first six hitters in their lineup saw Means three times. But Boston batters went 3-for-23 against him. They are 7-for-40 (.175) against him this year.

The Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are a combined 1-for-6 with five strikeouts this year against Means. Boston's Mookie Betts is 0-for-6.

So yeah, pretty good. Means has a 1.37 ERA in 19 2/3 innings versus the American League East. That is over five games, all against the Yankees and Boston.

Manager Brandon Hyde has talked often about Means continuing to throw his breaking pitches more and more, and he seemed pleased with that last night.

"You know, he's got two breaking balls and he utilized them more," Hyde said. "The more he's out there and able to give the hitter something else to think about, the better he's going to be."

Even over the small sample size of five 2019 starts, we are seeing Means transform from a two-pitch to a four-pitch pitcher. In his first start of this year, on April 9 versus Oakland, Means threw either fastballs or changeups on 94 percent of his pitches. Last night that was down to 74 percent.

Over his five starts, Means has thrown his changeup this percentage of the time - 41 percent, then 30, 29, 27 and 26 last night. In those games he has thrown his breaking balls (slider and curveball) this percentage of the time - five percent, then seven, 15, 19 and 26 last night.

So last night he threw his four-seam fastball - which averaged 91.9 mph - 48 percent of the time, his changeup 26 percent, his slider 22 percent and curve four percent.

Yep, he's morphing into more of a four-pitch pitcher, one with solid command who is neither afraid to pitch inside nor to elevate pitches to get swings and misses.

Coming up through the O's farm system, Means was the opposite of a rushed prospect. He pitched in the minors for five years and over 600 innings. He spent parts of both 2015 and 2016 at Single-A Frederick and was with Double-A Bowie for parts of three seasons from 2016-2018.

Means was never rated as a top 30 Orioles prospect by Baseball America. I asked him about that for this interview earlier this year.

"I'd say it's kind of hard not to notice that," Means said. "But at the same time, it kind of helps motivate you more. Sometimes with the first- and second-rounders, there is a lot on the line for them. They get a lot of publicity. They are written about if they are doing bad or if they are doing good.

"There are guys like me and others on this team - they don't get written about much until they make it. That is the biggest difference, I think. It's kind of nice, but once you get here, it's kind of a culture shock," he said of the media attention in the bigs.

But there is a lot to notice about Means now. He's pitching well and he's making pitch-mix adjustments that are effective before our eyes.