Muñoz starting to change it up more and more

This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer’s Mariners Beat newsletter, with MLB.com's Josh Kirshenbaum filling in for this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SEATTLE -- Four whiffs, in the grand scheme of things, may not seem like much. Neither does a 3.9 percent usage rate.

But for Andrés Muñoz, those small numbers might turn into something huge in the long run.

Muñoz has had an up-and-down beginning to the season. He’s gone 9-for-12 on save opportunities, after starting last year on a perfect 12-for-12 run. He’s already been pegged with three losses, matching his entire 2025 total. But to the right-hander, who has posted a 1.69 ERA since April 24, there are plenty of reasons to believe things are looking up.

“Feeling better each time I go on the mound,” Muñoz said. “We have to work on a lot of things, but basically it’s more about trust.”

A lot of that trust -- and the Mariners’ April 24 game against the Cardinals -- could be linked to one more factor for the Seattle closer: his changeup, which has gotten more and more exposure in the past month.

Muñoz’s kick-change was the talk of Seattle’s Spring Training in 2025, a sight to behold in bullpens with high velocity and up to 10 inches of vertical drop. But from the outset, he was up front about how the pitch was very much still in beta and not at all easy to throw. Despite breaking it out a bit more over the course of the summer, it disappeared from his arsenal in September, and he didn’t throw it at all in the postseason.

“It was more about the results I was getting,” Muñoz said. “I was getting outs in the playoffs with my slider, my fastball and my sinker, so we didn’t see the point of it. Right now, I’m getting more hard contact, so we need to put something in there to get the hitters off-balance.”

Muñoz didn’t throw his changeup at all in his first 10 outings this season. But following his first blown save of the year April 22, left-handed hitters were batting .313 against him. He needed another option.

Enter the kick-change.

“It’s not that I’m experimenting with it,” Muñoz. “It’s something I’ve worked a lot on and we just think it’s the right time to throw it.”

It started with an 0-1 change that darted under the zone to St. Louis’ Nathan Church. The next day, he threw Church another one; this one never had a chance, flying way outside. On April 29, Josh Bell took two for balls. It might have been beyond the experiment stage, but it was still a work in progress.

Things started to turn right -- as has been a theme for the Mariners this season -- against the Astros. On May 11, Muñoz followed up a first-pitch sinker to Jose Altuve with a changeup over the heart of the plate. It was arguably a worse spot for that pitch than in the dirt, but Altuve, a nine-time All-Star, had no clue what to do with it and took it for a strike -- the first strike Muñoz had recorded on a changeup in 36 appearances, dating back to last August.

“Obviously, he’d never seen that pitch before,” Muñoz said. “My only worry was that I was going to leave it in the middle -- and it was in the middle. But it was good for him to see that I have that, too. All the teams see that I had thrown it. Now they have it in mind that I’m going to throw it at some point.”

“At some point” followed a batter later, when Yordan Alvarez swung at a changeup off the plate and missed by a country mile to end the game.

Including that game in Houston, Muñoz has thrown his changeup in four of his past five outings. It’s something he’s just once or twice per appearance, but it’s worked. Four of his seven changeups in that span have generated whiffs, matching his entire total from last season. And since he started throwing it, lefties have hit just .200 against him.

“When they’re getting two pitches, you only have to focus on two,” catcher Jhonny Pereda said. “When he’s got three nice pitches, that’s really hard.”

It’s still not even close to a go-to tool for Muñoz, accounting for just 13 of his 337 offerings, or 3.9% of his total pitches. But its increased usage is a sign of his development as a pitcher, working through a few early-season rough spots and trying to come out a stronger and more disciplined closer.

“Sometimes you throw pitches right in the middle, and nothing happens,” Muñoz said. “Sometimes you hit the corners and execute your pitches, and they hit it.. … I’ve learned over the years, you can throw a perfect pitch and they can still hit it. The only thing you can do is keep working, and at some point, it’s going to turn out. That’s what I’m doing right now. I know I’m going to have bad outings, but the way I respond to it is going to help me do better.”