A burgeoning ace has emerged as 2025's premier strikeout artist

When the Nationals traded homegrown superstar Juan Soto at the 2022 Trade Deadline, the goal was to build a future core around multiple stars.

Fast forward to 2025, and we are seeing Washington’s thought process come to fruition. Included in that return were James Wood, one of the best young sluggers in the sport, and CJ Abrams, who has developed into a solid everyday shortstop. And at the top of the Nationals' rotation is MacKenzie Gore, who looks like a burgeoning ace.

The Nationals lefty hardly needs an introduction on his background. Gore was picked third overall in the 2017 Draft as one of the most advanced high school pitchers in recent history. Gore quickly made himself a household name, ranking as a Top 100 MLB prospect for five straight years from 2018-22 and topping out at No. 5 in 2020.

After dealing with inconsistent production and injuries -- he was on the injured list with elbow inflammation when the Nats acquired him -- Gore has slowly built himself into one of the most exciting starters in the Majors. The 26-year-old Gore has a 3.33 ERA and 1.3 FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement in his first eight starts and has struck out an MLB-leading 68 hitters.

Here’s how Gore -- who is pitching on Sunday against the Cardinals -- has turned himself into a premier strikeout artist and one of the top starters in the sport this season.

The following numbers are entering Friday's games.

Strikeouts galore

Gore struck out 332 batters in 302 2/3 innings from 2023-24, so he had already established a strong baseline for producing strikeouts. What Gore has done this year, however, is on a completely different level.

The lefty started his season with a bang, joining Bob Gibson as the only pitchers with 13 strikeouts and no walks in a scoreless Opening Day start. Gore hasn’t slowed down since that point.

“That was special,” manager Davey Martinez told MLB.com's Jessica Camerato. “To go out there in his first Opening Day start and do what he did was awesome.”

Gore has a two-strikeout lead over Zack Wheeler (66 strikeouts) entering his Sunday start. Gore’s 68 strikeouts through his first eight starts of the season are the most since Spencer Strider punched out 79 batters to begin his 2023 season. Before Strider was Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer. You get the picture.

The fact that Gore is doing this as a left-handed starter is all the more impressive. Here are the left-handed starters who have struck out at least 68 hitters through their first eight starts of a season in the Wild Card era (since 1995):

MacKenzie Gore, 2025
Carlos Rodón, 2021
Chris Sale, 2017
Clayton Kershaw, 2016
Randy Johnson, 1995, 1999-2002, ‘04

Gore has a ways to go before reaching the stratosphere set by the likes of The Big Unit, Sale and Kershaw, but the fact that he’s even in the conversation with those guys is telling. Left-handed strikeout artists are not easy to find. The only qualified left-handed starter to run a strikeout rate as high as Gore’s 36.4 percent mark was Johnson’s 37.4 percent figure in his legendary 2001 season.

Domination via curveballs and sliders

Every strikeout artist has their go-to putaway pitches. For Gore, he has two options in his devastating curveball and slider, which are in part set up by his average 95.5 mph four-seamer.

Of those two breakers, it’s the curveball that shines brightest. Throwing his curveball 24.2 percent of the time, Gore has produced 26 strikeouts on the pitch, tied for the most by any curveball this season and tied for the ninth-most by any pitch. His 53.0 percent whiff rate on the curveball is tied for the fifth-highest among any pitch swung 25 times against a starting pitcher.

Gore’s curveball has improved from good to elite because he’s altered the shape of the pitch, sacrificing velocity for more vertical drop and horizontal break.

2024 curveball: 82.8 mph, 10.3 inches induced vertical break, 0.5 inches horizontal break
2025 curveball: 81.9 mph, 12.8 inches induced vertical break, 3.8 inches horizontal break

Stuff+, which looks at the physical characteristics of a pitch, has dropped his curveball grade from 102 in 2024 to 95 in ’25, but the results speak for themselves. This is one of the elite pitches in baseball right now.

Gore’s slider has been nearly as good as his curveball from a rate basis. It’s Gore’s third-most utilized pitch at 11.5 percent, but it’s actually been his top pitch in terms of expected wOBA (.176) and run value (+3).

“It’s been really effective, really good," Martinez said of Gore's slider. "And he's throwing it with conviction, which is awesome.”

Hitters are swinging through exactly half of Gore’s sliders, with his 50 percent whiff rate tied for 11th among all pitches by starting pitchers. Unlike his curveball, Gore hasn’t altered the shape of his slider much, with similar velocity and overall movement as last year’s version. Nonetheless, it’s been one of baseball’s top sliders.

That kind of breaking ball dominance puts Gore in an elite class. His 38 combined strikeouts on breaking balls are the second-most in the Majors behind Sale's 42 strikeouts. Gore is also running a 51.6 percent whiff rate on his changeup, although he's allowed more hard contact against that pitch. Gore is the only starting pitcher running a whiff rate of at least 50 percent on three different pitches.

Just for good measure, Gore has also produced 16 strikeouts on four-seamers, eight on cutters and six on changeups, giving him a plethora of options to generate punchouts.

Slowly improved command

In Gore’s debut season, he walked 37 batters in 70 innings and walked 12 percent of opposing hitters. In each season since, Gore has shaved part of his walk rate, going from 12 percent to 9.8 percent in 2023, to 8.9 percent last season, to 7.0 percent this year. For the first time in his career, Gore is running an above-average walk rate.

“He’s been a lot more consistent with the way he goes about his mechanics, a lot smoother," Martinez said. "His landing foot has been a lot better, very consistent. So it allows him to get to the arm side a lot better. So that has been a key for him.”

Outside of his improvement in Location+ (98 in 2024, 104 in ‘25), Gore hasn’t shown meaningful changes in terms of throwing more strikes. What he has done, however, is produce significantly more chases at pitches out of the zone.

After running mediocre or below-average chase rates in his first three seasons, Gore is now generating chases on 32.4 percent of pitches out of the zone, placing him in the 84th percentile (he never ranked higher than the 56th percentile). Gore’s 5.1 percent improvement in chase rate this season is bested by only three starters who have thrown at least 30 innings.

This is a different way of improving your command, but it’s nonetheless a sign that Gore has developed more as a pitcher. That maturation has been on full display, as Gore has seemingly begun to tap into the potential he’s long had.

Along with Wood, Abrams and Dylan Crews, Gore is helping build the semblance of a core that the Nats can count on for years to come. If Gore keeps this up, there’s no doubt who Washington’s future No. 1 starter in a playoff game would be.