Young's revamped splitter fueling strong results for O's

This story was excerpted from Jake Rill’s Orioles Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BALTIMORE -- The starting pitcher with the best ERA in the Orioles’ rotation -- among those with at least 30 innings pitched this season -- isn’t Trevor Rogers or Kyle Bradish. It’s not Shane Baz or Chris Bassitt.

It’s Brandon Young, a 27-year-old right-hander with a 3.47 ERA in 36 1/3 innings over seven starts. The former prospect is not only pitching well, but he seems to be getting better.

This past Sunday, Young threw a season-high 6 2/3 innings and allowed only two unearned runs during Baltimore’s 5-3 win over Detroit at Camden Yards. If you dive into the advanced metrics from that outing, one significant change will jump off the page.

Young’s splitter was essentially a completely different pitch than it had been up to that point.

Here are the splitter numbers to prove it:

First six starts of 2026

Average velocity: 87.7 mph
Average spin rate: 1,501 RPM
Average vertical break: 30 inches vertical
Average horizontal break: 11.8 inches horizontal

Sunday’s start

Average velocity: 82.8 mph
Average spin rate: 1,348 RPM
Average vertical break: 38 inches vertical
Average horizontal break: 7.6 inches horizontal

This wasn’t an accident. After Young’s previous start against the Nationals on May 17, he was approached by the O’s trio of pitching coaches -- Drew French, Mitch Plassmeyer and Ryan Klimek -- about modifying the grip he uses when throwing his splitter.

“It just wasn’t getting results,” Young said. “I wasn’t consistently getting to the right locations with it, so it was just time for a change, time for an adjustment.”

French thought it could be beneficial to create a larger gap in velocity between Young’s splitter and his four-seam fastball (which is averaging 94 mph). The split is also the righty’s second-most-used pitch -- ahead of his slider, sinker and curveball -- so it was important for him to have better results with the offering, especially to keep left-handed hitters off-balance.

The coaches presented Young with an idea -- gripping the ball on the horseshoe of the laces, much like the type of splitter thrown by Rangers right-hander Nathan Eovaldi. The pitch would then come out slower and with a bit less spin, but significantly more vertical break.

“It was just kind of, ‘Now’s the time. Because we know it’s important for you to get out lefties, you’re going to face some very left-handed lineups. And the curveball has come a long way, the four-seam has looked spectacular. But this is a pitch to kind of finish off your triangle,’” French said. “‘Can we develop something that’s got a little bit more drop? It’s got a little bit more front to back, and you have the similar -- or better -- feel of it.’ And so, that was kind of the genesis of why we came to that decision.”

Young tested it out during his between-starts bullpen session last Thursday. He felt comfortable enough with it to then use it during Sunday’s outing, as all 25 of his splitters used the new grip.

Twelve of them were balls, as Young got used to the adjustment. But the Tigers went 1-for-5 against the split, with the only hit being Colt Keith’s single in the sixth inning. There were six foul balls, two flyouts, one groundout, one called strike and two whiffs -- including a 3-2 offering to Riley Greene that generated a swing-and-miss for a strikeout in the sixth.

“It was interesting, and then the more I thought about it, it was kind of a no-brainer,” Young said. “It was my first strikeout in the big leagues with that pitch, so I was a little fond of it. I just didn’t want to let it go, I guess. But knowing that I want to get better in this game, I want to be a better pitcher, it was a no-brainer to make an adjustment.”

French wasn’t surprised that Young implemented the new splitter grip so quickly, as the O’s pitching team relied on its available technology to determine whether it would be a good option.

“You’re not just flipping a coin at this point and just saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do something different. Let’s just put the changeup back in your hand. You used to have a changeup. Let’s do that,’” French said. “But more that, ‘Your comfort with your fingers spread on the baseball, now can we do the same thing and just put you in a different part of the ball and then actively chase X and Y?’

“In his instance, it was, ‘Can we start this pitch higher and have it end up in similar locations?’ That was goal one. And then, everything else that kind of came after that was just a byproduct of a really good grip fitting, a really good staff that we have and a really good player that was able to feel comfortable in a couple days’ time and just go out there and trust it.”