How Baltimore Orioles Ace Became MLB's Hardest Pitcher To Hit

The Baltimore Orioles Ace has become one of MLB's best pitchers as batters struggle to make good contact.

Jun 1, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles pitcher Kyle Bradish (38) throws a first inning pitch against the Tampa Bay Rays at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. | Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles have built on of baseball's most dominant starting rotations.

Along with having one of the front runners for the AL Cy Young Award in Corbin Burnes, Kyle Bradish has also established himself has one of the best pitchers in MLB.

Bradish's dominance was highlighted by MLB writer Mike Petriello's recent study on the hardest pitchers in the league to 'square up.'

Squaring up a pitch is achieving 80% of the available exit velocity based on the speed of the swing and the pitch, as defined Petriello's piece.

Among all qualified pitchers in the league, Bradish finished with the lowest percentage. The only pitcher with a better number was phenom Mason Miller, who hasn't faced enough batters to officially make the list.

Only 17% of swings against him end up as 'squared.' This is an easy number to look at and understand the success that he has found for a second season in a row.

The Arizona native broke out onto the scene last year, but has been even better in 2024. He did start late due to injury, but through his first starts he doesn't look to be showing any signs of rust.

Further pointing out the dominance of the Baltimore rotation, his 2.67 ERA is second on the team and just .25 higher than the third-best mark.

Bradish is also second on the roster in WHIP, but has by far the best FIP. He's striking out 3.8 more batters per nine innings and giving up almost one less hit. His walk numbers are a bit up, but that seems to be a fair trade off for his other improvements.

Batters are hitting just .191/.287/.270 against him this season. He has yet to give up a home run, which makes sense seeing as though batters clearly have a hard time making good contact against him.

His infield fly-ball rate has jumped up from 5.8% last year to an absurd 29.2%. Of pitchers with at least 30 innings pitches, that is the best mark in the country.

He cut his hard-hit rate down by almost half, which has more than doubled his soft-contact rate.

One of the main adjustments that he made was throwing his four-seam fastball less and increasing his sinker usage. Two pitches had 'negative run value' per FanGraphs, the four-seam and the changeup. Both of those have been drastically decreased in his pitch mix and put into the sinker, which has become his most valuable pitch.

The combo of Bradish and Burnes has made this team's championship aspirations much more real.