Brandon Pfaadt Soars to New Heights in Impressive Start Against Padres

Brandon Pfaadt’s recent struggles have been a contributing factor to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ underwhelming first half. In 17 starts, Pfaadt had a 5.42 ERA and one of the worst hard-hit and barrel rates for a major league starting pitcher this season. However, the right-hander made a statement in an 8-2 win over the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.

The game didn’t have an auspicious start. Fernando Tatis Jr. turned on Pfaadt’s second pitch of the night for a double. Pfaadt didn’t back down, as he escaped the jam just seven pitches later with Tatis never moving off second. It started a stretch of 13 consecutive batters retired, which allowed the offense to blow the game open with a trio of home runs off Dylan Cease.

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“You’ve got to tip your cap to him, he found a way to shut them down, give our offense a chance to get going,” said Diamondbacks catcher James McCann in the postgame interview with Jody Jackson on the DbacksTV broadcast.

What worked for Pfaadt was his ability to mix his entire arsenal. He embraced a horizontal approach, leading with his sinker and then tunneling his sweeper or cutter off it. All four of his strikeouts came on those three pitches.

“He’s still young, he’s still learning his arsenal, learning what works the best at this level for him,” said McCann. “Tonight, we stuck to his strengths, and he did a heck of a job of locating the ball. That’s the results that you saw.”

He was also able to reduce the amount of loud contact, with only 10 of 24 balls put into play against him labeled as hard-hit (exit velocity of 95.0 MPH or greater) and two barrels. Both were considerably lower than his 50.3% hard-hit rate and 13.4% barrel rate.

Pfaadt had never pitched past the 7th in his career to this point. Even though he had a little bit of juice left in the tank, at just 84 pitches, manager Torey Lovullo was prepared to pull him out of the game.

“It was after the seventh that I went down there and I had my mind on taking him out of the game,” Lovullo told DbacksTV reporter Jody Jackson postgame. “I was going down there to say ‘Good job, man, that’s it,’ and he went ‘No, I’m good.’

“What I’ve learned over the course of time is when somebody is feeling that powerful in the moment, and we have a little bit of wiggle room, to get out of their way. I said, ‘Alright, I’m going to keep you on a short leash. Go out there and do it. Show me.’”

Pitching into the eighth inning for the first time in his career, Pfaadt struck out Elias Díaz and Tatis on sweepers to punctuate an eight-inning masterpiece. McCann told Lovullo that it was his pitcher’s best inning of the night.

Pfaadt finished the night with just two runs allowed on four hits, no walks, and four strikeouts on 99 pitches. He only made two mistakes on the night that were hit hard: a center-cut changeup to Jake Cronenworth for a double and a sweeper that caught the middle of the plate to Gavin Sheets for a solo home run.

The game should serve as a confidence boost for Pfaadt, whose next start will likely come after the All-Star Break. It was his first quality start since May 19th at Dodger Stadium. He’s been slowly gaining his footing of late, having gone five innings and allowed two earned runs or less in four of his last six starts.

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D-backs Under Review is Michael McDermott’s publication for deep analysis dives, game coverage, prospect coverage, and breaking down the biggest news topics involving the Arizona Diamondbacks. Michael has been writing about the D-backs since the 2015 season, with stops at AZ Snake Pit, Diamondbacks On SI, Venom Strikes, and Burn City Sports. He has covered over 40 MLB games at Chase Field and the Arizona Fall League.