How a new pitch and t-shirt has turned Clarke Schmidt's season around with Yankees
Something had to change, and Clarke Schmidt knew it. He wasn’t fooling hitters with his pitches towards the end of 2022. He needed to make adjustments or do something entirely different going into the new year.
So that’s what he did. Schmidt, a pitcher for South Carolina baseball from 2015-17, met with the Yankees’ coaching staff and analytics department in the offseason to get their thoughts on what he should do.
It came down to either adjusting his changeup or incorporating a new pitch. He kept the changeup but gave a new pitch a go.
That new pitch would be the cutter. It’s a version of the fastball that cuts away from right-handed batters and moves in on lefties. If thrown correctly, it can be a challenge to hit it.
“I started throwing it in the offseason, just messing around with it the first couple of days. And it was really, really breaking significantly,” Schmidt said. “It was to the point where I was like, ‘Oh, dang, we really have something here.’ Then it just kind of progressed throughout the offseason.”
By the time spring training rolled around, Schmidt saw promising results. In the midst of competing for a spot in the starting rotation, he struck out 25 and walked four in 19.2 innings of work. He did enough good to earn a start in the second game of the regular season.
[Get news from GamecockCentral via email]
But the good results he saw in the spring were pushed to the way side when the real games began. He wasn’t getting enough outs or going deep into games. And as a result, he finished April with an 0-3 record and 6.84 ERA in his first six starts and had a cutter that still needed time to develop.
“We kind of didn’t know how to incorporate it into the pitch package at first coming out of spring training. So we felt like the usages were a little off earlier in the season,” Schmidt said. “Also felt like there wasn’t as much execution and almost pitching a little, not tentatively, but pitching a little bit more towards trying to strike too many people out rather than using my stuff to induce weak contact.”
Through that first month, Schmidt admitted he was still trying to figure out his identity as a pitcher. After all, this was his first full year as an MLB starter.
“You can’t be too emotional and get too high and get too low, because it will take you out of your game. And even through the course of a season, it will take you out of your game, too. If I was to early on in the season think too much of what was going on with the results and be like, what the heck’s going on and start panicking, I don’t think I would be going on the run that I’m going on right now,” Schmidt said.
“I’ve just been enjoying the process of growing and learning, and even the failures. I knew that I always was extremely calm, and I’ve always been confident. But I was always confident that I was going to be able to right the ship and be able to turn things around.”
While fans were calling for him to be demoted to the minor leagues or sent to the bullpen, Schmidt kept working in hopes of something clicking. And eventually, it did.
After allowing a season-high seven runs on May 14, Schmidt only gave up three runs across his next three outings. By June, he was giving the Yankees a chance to win every time he threw.
His cutter started to form nicely as well. Of the five pitches he uses, he’s been throwing the cutter 25.2 percent of the time. He’s barely throwing his changeup anymore, only going with it for 22 pitches this season.
“We started to figure out like where we can throw it. And the good areas for it and the usages for it,” he said. “I think it’s really starting to hit its stride now. And it’s just been fun to have that maturing process of learning a new pitch package and being able to go out there every five days and put it to work.”
Now into July, Schmidt has looked like a much different pitcher to the one that was getting roughed up over three months ago. He’s 4-3 with a 3.98 ERA and 55 strikeouts to 19 walks since the start of May. His home runs given up have also been down, only giving up six. Opposing teams had hit seven in April.
[Subscribe to GamecockCentral’s YouTube page]
During his recent stretch of starts, Schmidt has done something that could be considered superstitious in a way. He’s been wearing a black t-shirt featuring his teammate Harrison Bader on it.
At first, he was just supporting his friend, but it quickly became more than that with how he’s been pitching.
“It’s funny, I got the shirt, we started winning, I started pitching really well,” Schmidt said. “It was one of those things where I just kept wearing the shirt after every outing. I just always end up somehow wearing that shirt. So it’s funny that it’s ended up that way.”
Now coming out of the All-Star break, Schmidt will start against the Rockies Saturday night. With his team in the thick of a playoff race, he knows that he needs to keep giving them a chance to win by continuing to pitch well.
“You constantly have to stay even keel and just continuing to bottle up what I have going on right now. We’re on a good streak right now. So just to be able to bottle this run we’re up on right now is the key for me,” he said.
“Every time I go out there is the biggest thing, and just knowing that if I do my preparation, the rest of the work is going to handle itself.”
