Hi, I Strikeout Opposite Handed Hitters Now
Pitchers can change. Pitchers can change. Pitchers can change. If you don’t believe that, read those first three sentences aloud, preferably in a loud voice in a public space. Hopefully, it will be heard by a fellow baseball lover, and boom, you have a new friend to debate the topic with. You can chat about whether changes in the way pitchers approach opposite-handed hitters matter in the grand scheme of the season. In this article, I’ll present five pitchers from each matchup combination who have increased their strikeout rates against opposite-handed hitters.
I gathered this data through games played on April 21st. I isolated the sample to starting pitchers with at least 10 innings pitched in 2025 against opposite-handed hitters and 30 IP in 2024 using our FanGraphs splits leaderboards. Most of the individual pitch L/R split data came from PitcherList.com.
| Name | 2025 K% | 2024 K% | K% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Lodolo | 15.2% | 24.9% | -9.8% |
| Tarik Skubal | 23.3% | 30.9% | -7.6% |
| Garrett Crochet | 27.1% | 33.8% | -6.7% |
| Yusei Kikuchi | 22.3% | 28.1% | -5.8% |
| Shota Imanaga | 18.5% | 24.2% | -5.7% |
A declined K% in a pitcher’s first few starts doesn’t warrant panic from fantasy managers. But it’s something to keep an eye on. Lodolo has a 2.79 ERA through five starts in 2025, but his 3.73 xERA tells us there’s more to the story. His overall K% is down to 15.3% compared to where it finished last season at 24.7%. In 2024, Lodolo’s best pitch against righties was his curveball, which had a 37.4% CSW% against them. The good news is he’s still getting called strikes on the pitch, the bad news is all his pitches (four-seamer, curveball, changeup, sinker) are earning fewer swinging strikes against righties. His four-seamer SwStr% is down to 8.1% against all hitters, just below league average.
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| Name | 2025 K% | 2024 K% | K% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eduardo Rodriguez | 31.8% | 21.5% | 10.3% |
| Cristopher Sánchez | 29.9% | 20.2% | 9.7% |
| MacKenzie Gore | 34.5% | 25.8% | 8.7% |
| David Peterson | 25.0% | 16.5% | 8.5% |
| Cole Ragans | 40.2% | 31.8% | 8.4% |
Eduardo Rodriguez has increased the usage of his slider to righties from 2.4% in 2024 to 6.5% this season. It’s a dangerous game to play, but he’s located it well so far to the right-handed hitters’ backfoot and has only given up a single on the ones that float up into the zone:
Still, at such a low number of total pitches, the slider isn’t the only reason for Rodriguez’s newfound success. That is likely due to increased swinging strikes on his cutter, which he’s locating up and in to righties and increased CSW% (combined called strikes and whiffs) on his changeup and sinker. In his career, E-Rod has struck out right-handed hitters at a 23.0% clip. So far in 2025, he’s blowing that mark out of the water.
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| Name | 2025 K% | 2024 K% | K% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mitch Keller | 10.1% | 24.0% | -13.9% |
| Charlie Morton | 14.1% | 27.3% | -13.2% |
| Dean Kremer | 10.5% | 23.0% | -12.4% |
| Cal Quantrill | 5.0% | 16.9% | -11.9% |
| Erick Fedde 페디 | 10.9% | 20.2% | -9.3% |
The SwStr% on Mitch Keller’s changeup against lefties this season (8.3%) is actually better than it was last season (0.0%), but he didn’t really use the pitch last year. This data point is a weird one as diving deeper into negative results reveal a hidden positive. After mostly giving up on his changeup to lefties last year, Keller is doing well with it this year:
| Year | Usage% | O-Sw% | SwStr% | CS% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 4.4% | – | 5.3% | 5.3% |
| 2020 | 5.1% | 10.0% | 0.0% | 8.3% |
| 2021 | 6.4% | 15.2% | 5.2% | 12.1% |
| 2022 | 10.8% | 25.3% | 6.2% | 11.0% |
| 2023 | 5.1% | 24.5% | 8.1% | 18.6% |
| 2024 | 1.4% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 10.0% |
| 2025 | 14.8% | 17.2% | 8.3% | 10.4% |
It’s every other pitch that Keller is struggling with against lefties relative to last season. Each of his other five pitches, the four-seamer, slider, sweeper, sinker, and curveball have lost SwStr% against opposite handed hitters between 2004 and 2025. Someone tell Keller to throw his changeup to lefties more.
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| Name | 2025 K% | 2024 K% | K% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luis L. Ortiz | 34.1% | 17.8% | 16.3% |
| Chris Bassitt | 34.7% | 19.7% | 15.0% |
| Taijuan Walker | 25.6% | 15.0% | 10.6% |
| Jonathan Cannon | 23.7% | 14.8% | 8.9% |
| Casey Mize | 28.0% | 19.3% | 8.7% |
Always save the best for last. Despite an increased overall K%, Luis L. Ortiz is not having a great start to the season. He’s had a bad home run problem, giving up four in his first four starts. Two home runs have gone off his four-seamer and two off his slider. Three of those four home runs were clear mistakes: one four-seamer in the nitro zone and two sliders left over the plate. Yet, his HR/FB% is higher than the league average: 16.7% vs. 11.1%. His overall K%, SwStr%, CStr%, and K-BB% are all higher than last season’s marks. His LOB% is low (69.7%) compared to the league average (72.4%), and the Stuff+ metrics on each of his five pitches are currently higher than where they finished in 2024.
What’s he doing against lefties differently this season? A few things, but most importantly, he’s throwing his changeup more often and landing it for called strikes. The pitch, which he’s throwing 16% of the time to lefties compared to 1.8% last season, is earning a 24.1% CSW%, slightly better than the league average. Furthermore, he’s dropped the usage of his slider to lefties and increased his four-seam usage, the result of which has been more swinging strikes. If Ortiz can continue to locate his changeup to lefties…
…while also locating his four-seamer a little further up in the zone, he could be on to something, especially if his luck starts to turn.