SAN DIEGO — Kyle Higashioka spent seven seasons behind the plate for Aroldis Chapman, Gerrit Cole and other pitchers. These pitchers possess rare arms and unusual speed, but in his first season with the Padres, the veteran catcher found himself marveling at how unusual pitchers really feel.
Robert Suarez is a soft-spoken, hard-throwing closer from San Diego who exudes high-octane energy like no other pitcher in the majors. His combined fastball usage rate increased nearly 30 percentage points from last season. He started as a four-seamer and averaged 98.5 mph more than 80 percent of the time. He mixed in the sinker on nearly 11 percent of his pitches (97.9 mph average velocity). In an impressive eight games last month, Suarez hit 79 fastballs in a row.
“People don’t even do this in high school,” Higashioka said. “This is crazy.”
It would be even stranger if the 33-year-old Suarez had limited success with this approach. But the Venezuelan right-hander is neither stubborn nor unimaginative. Suarez had a 0.52 ERA in 16 games. In the Padres bullpen, he tied for the league lead in games completed (16), saves (12) and saves with more than three shutouts (three). Opponents are hitting .250 (1-for-4) against his off-speed changeup and just .093 (4-for-43) against four-seamers, which warrants his heavy use.
“It’s got ride, character, and his pitches are at the top of the zone,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You know what’s coming, but a lot of the swing (hits) Players) can’t keep up. I don’t like him playing.
Why are common fastballs so hard to hit?
“Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla did all kinds of analysis on my pitching, especially spin rate, which helped me a lot,” Suarez said recently via team translator Pedro Gu. Tierres said. “It allows me to execute a little more.”
On Saturday, just hours after Suarez threw 11 four-seamers, two sinkers and nothing else in a perfect inning against the Dodgers, Niebra explained in more detail.
Niebra said he has gained a practical understanding of spin efficiency since Santiago signed Suarez from Japan’s top professional league at the end of the 2021 season. While there’s no proven way to significantly improve raw spin rate without using banned foreign objects, Suarez will keep his four-seamer’s active spin (a Statcast metric that measures spin that contributes to the movement) from 2022. The percentage improved from 93.7% to 95.9% this season. Roberts mentioned that average vertical movement on the pitch has increased by nearly an inch since the end of 2023.
“If he starts working too much inside the ball, his four-seamer starts to work and we lose spin efficiency,” Niebra said. “If we reduce it a little bit, we lose spin efficiency. Right now, he seems to be clicking. Like, rhythmically, he’s behind the ball and really getting pure backspin.
More than 90% of Robert Suarez’s pitches this season have been fastballs. (Tim Nawachukwu/Getty Images)
Calibrating Suarez’s shot is key. Early in spring training, Niebra noticed that the pitcher’s lower body was moving well on the mound, but his torso was “a little behind.” Suarez struggled in his first few Cactus League appearances, although he and Niebra worked to address the root causes. It wasn’t until Suarez’s final spring outing in Arizona that Niebla felt the reliever had fully synced up his timing.
“Even though he went to Korea (for the season opener against the Dodgers) … I was still a little nervous, and then it was fine,” Niebla said Saturday at Petco Park. “Then he comes out. And then you just track – I just track. But now I feel like it’s so easy, I don’t even have to talk to him. It’s like, ‘You have a rhythm.’ ” I didn’t even tell him he was getting into a rhythm.
Higashioka played six seasons with Chapman, who still holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest pitch in the major leagues, a 105.8 mph pitch to Tony Gwynn Jr. at Petco Park in 2010. “He works very hard,” Higashioka said. “You can tell that he is using every ounce of his strength to support everything.” At the same time, Suarez has a “flammable gas” that is close to the textbook definition.
“Sometimes,” Padres starting catcher Luis Campasano said, “it almost goes into my glove.”
Those who have been around Suarez point to something else.
“His command is very good,” Roberts said.
“The first bullpen I caught, I was surprised by the order,” Higashioka said. “It’s almost accurate. For a guy to throw 100 times with above-average command, I mean, that’s pretty special.
“There’s a combination that goes to 100, but when this guy puts the ball in the top of the zone and gets to the outside half of the zone, goes to 100, all of a sudden, he hits a two-seamer. Okay. Lock you in,” Niebla said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, is it —, is it this or the other one?'”
In his 79th straight fastball, Suarez threw 74 four-seamers and five sinkers. He did not allow a run, two singles and two walks. (Suarez’s only hit streak of the season came on March 28, when Michael Conforto hit a changeup ball for a solo home run.) He recorded just five strikeouts , but he induced sustained weak contact and kept batters off-balance by changing the speed of his pitches.
On the 40th or 50th fastball in a row, some of Suarez’s teammates started talking among themselves: Something different was going on.
“I think we’re all just some kind of surveillance,” Higashioka said. “We noticed he wasn’t really throwing anything, but he was still dominant. It was really cool.
“I know the fastball gets a lot of usage, but it’s his best weapon. It’s yes “This is his best weapon.” Suarez’s main teammate Campasano said before a game at Coors Field on April 22. “So, just mixing it all into the plate all the time, it becomes more effective. I feel very confident about using it until someone can prove they can swing it well.
“You know 100 is coming. You just don’t know where it’s going to come from.
Robert Suarez 100 mph ⛽️⛽️ pic.twitter.com/ZMSQtDHInk
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 7, 2024
Of course, a cautious competitor never reveals too much. Hours after Campuzano spoke, catchers called for a 1-2 changeup instead of Suarez’s 80th consecutive fastball. Sean Bouchard fouled. Then, on the next pitch, the Colorado Rockies outfielder hit a double.
It was Suarez’s only extra-base hit off a fastball this season. Now, three weeks later, this is still the case. Suarez has simply increased his use of the pitch. So far in May, he’s been throwing four-seamers almost 90 percent of the time. Batters are 0-for-14 this month.
“That’s my strength,” Niebla said. “As a reliever, you have to use it.”
Since tracking the pitching era began in 2008, only 12 pitchers have thrown at least 90 percent of their pitches (minimum 500 pitches) to a four-seamer, sinker or cutter. Mariano Rivera, widely regarded as the greatest closer of all time, leads the way with a 98.5% field goal percentage; his famous cutter accounted for 87.6% of his pitches during this period.
Over the past 16 seasons, no one has thrown a four-seamer or sinker more than 86.7 percent of the time. By 2024, Suarez (who hit 68.3 percent of the time in his major league career) will hit 91.3 percent. The only pitcher who has thrown more non-cutting fastballs this season is former Padres reliever Tim Hill, and the left-hander’s average four-seam velocity is 8 mph slower than Suarez’s, who has 13 Pitch speed must be at least 100 mph.
Perhaps one day, opponent adjustments or other factors will prompt Suarez to rely less on his fastball. For now, who knows when his next off-pitch pitch will come: One of baseball’s automatic closers threw 32 straight fastballs on Sunday.
(Top photo of Robert Suarez: Michael Reeves/Getty Images)
