KANSAS CITY -- Bailey Ober is still searching for the velocity on his fastball. On Sunday, he found a way around it: just don’t throw fastballs.
Ober pitched one of his best games of the year by leaning extremely heavily on his offspeed pitches, holding the Royals to one run on four hits over 5 1/3 innings. He struck out six, walked one, and retired the first nine batters of the game in order to lead the Twins to a 5-1 win at Kauffman Stadium.
And he did it while throwing only 24 four-seam fastballs among his 85 pitches, a meager 28.2 percent rate. It was even lower through the early innings, as Ober threw eight fastballs total to the first nine hitters.
“It was just kind of seeing what they were on and what they weren’t,” Ober said. “I felt like I was able to mix and locate my offspeed, whether that was changeups or the hard slider or the sweeper. So I felt like I had that rolling, and they weren’t adjusting as early as I thought they might be. So I feel like we kind of stayed with that, and then the third time through we started throwing a little bit more fastballs that last inning.”
Ober relied heavily on his slider and changeup while also throwing some sweepers, keeping the Royals off balance throughout. Ober averaged just 89.4 mph on his four-seamer, but the way he was throwing Sunday, it didn’t matter.
The last time Ober allowed one or no runs, and struck out six or more, was May 3 -- 16 starts ago -- which coincidentally was also the last time he was credited with a win. It’s been a rough go for him in recent months, but Sunday may have shown a potential path for him to regain the consistent effectiveness that he has proven he’s capable of throughout a majority of his career.
“Very sharp,” said manager Rocco Baldelli. “Wasn’t really out of any at-bats, just kept pumping strikes and throwing good offspeed pitches on the outskirts of the zone. I don’t think he gave them a ton of good pitches to hit today, and that’s a testament to him. He’s feeling really good about that, I’m feeling really good about that.”
It was especially impressive given that Ober was working with catcher Jhonny Pereda for the first time. Pereda was recalled from Triple-A St. Paul two days earlier, and in addition to the regular pitchers’ meeting, the two had a get-to-know-you session in the clubhouse on Sunday morning.
“I thought he did a really good job being on the same page,” Ober said. “We were having dialogue in between innings. We had a plan going out there every single inning which was great. He did a really good job.”