Ranger Suárez is throwing curveballs more than ever. Here’s how it’s helped him find success this season.

Suarez is throwing the pitch three times more than last season, and is a big reason for his emergence as one of the Phillies’ most reliable starters.

Ranger Suárez has a 1.04 ERA over his last four starts.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Alex Coffey

Published Jun. 22, 2023, 2:41 p.m. ET

Phillies pitchers Ranger Suárez and Seranthony Domínguez were playing catch in the outfield about halfway through last season when Domínguez made a suggestion. Suárez didn’t have a good feel for his slider. When Domínguez was pitching out of the rotation in the minors, he threw a curveball, and he told Suárez to give it a try.

Suárez learned the grip a few years ago from minor leaguer Francisco Morales. He began throwing it with Domínguez every day, but didn’t feel like he was executing it well. Domínguez disagreed.

“He’s way smarter than me,” Domínguez said. “He got it quick. Like one or two days. Just like that.”

Suárez decided to bring it into a bullpen session. Like Domínguez, pitching coach Caleb Cotham was impressed with how quickly the left-handed starter had developed the pitch. Most pitchers take a month or an entire offseason to do what Suárez did in just a few days.

“It kind of worked right away,” Cotham said. “It was really impressive. There aren’t many guys who can do that. That’s very rare, to take it straight into a Major League Baseball game and have success with it. But it doesn’t surprise me, knowing Ranger.”

Suárez threw the curveball about 7.7% of the time last season, but in 2023, he has upped that figure to 21.6%. It’s become his second-most-used pitch. Hitters are batting just .063 against it. He has a 38% whiff percentage and a 11.1% hard-hit percentage on his curveball, according to Baseball Savant.

Cotham and Suárez say the pitch has been a key part of his success this season. After an injured list stint kept him out for most of spring training and caused him to miss over a month’s worth of starts, Suárez has emerged as one of the Phillies’ most reliable starters. He has a 1.04 ERA over his last four starts. He’s gradually thrown his curveball more, mainly because he’s had a better feel for it.

“Curveball, if you don’t feel the best, it’s definitely a feel pitch,” Cotham said. “It’s not like a slider necessarily where you just crank it. You’ve got to have a good hand; you’ve got to finish it well. He’s feeling better.”

Part of what makes Suárez’s curveball so effective is that it comes out of a similar slot as his fastball and stays on that line of flight for a long time.

“It’s tough to get hitters off of fastballs, so that’s why we see off-speed pitches playing a little better than fastballs,” Cotham said. “And left-handed pitchers versus right-handed hitters, a more vertical pitch is typically better. So I think as a standalone, it’s a good pitch. But fitting inside his arsenal makes it a really good pitch for him.

“I wouldn’t say sitting on its own it’s a pop-off-the-page pitch in terms of its nastiness, but it kind of completes his arsenal for him.”

He is also throwing it for strikes, thanks to his improved fastball command. Cotham said those two pitches have fed off each other.

“Having the curveball now helps the fastball,” he said. “Having the fastball helps the curveball. So it’s a big net effect. But it’s definitely a huge piece of his success.

“For a curveball to be a strike it has to start at the top of the zone — his curveball, specifically. If he can’t command the top of the zone, or the up-and-in quadrant to righties, now the curveball has to start somewhere completely different than where the fastball is. So by him commanding the top of the zone with his four-seam fastball, he has set the line with his delivery and his hand, so now his curveball can be thrown out of that same line and be a strike.”

Domínguez is enjoying his teammate’s run of success, but feels it’s important to remind Suárez of where this idea came from.

“Every time he throws a breaking ball I’m like, ‘You got to pay me for that breaking ball,’” Domínguez joked. “‘Give me a 10% cut, 20% cut.’”