Earlier this month, standing beside his locker inside the visitor's clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, Rangers infielder Jake Burger did not hesitate when prompted to name the toughest pitcher he's faced during his MLB career.
"Ranger Suarez," Burger told MLB.com. "He's got the three-fastball mix and locates really well. He's one of those tough guys who doesn't throw hard, but he knows how to pitch. The game is built on power now, on both sides of the ball. But someone that can kind of dot up is always a tougher at-bat."
Suarez is in fact an anomaly in today's game. Despite an average fastball velocity (91.1 mph) that sits in the eighth percentile, the crafty left-hander is a dependable, high-quality starting pitcher.
In particular, of late, Suarez has shown why the Red Sox signed him to a five-year, $130 million deal in a bold late-January pivot. Heading into Tuesday's start at Fenway Park against the NL-best Braves (6:45 p.m. ET, MLB.TV and TBS), Suarez has allowed just one run in his past four starts -- spanning 21 2/3 innings and a hamstring scare. In the process, he's lowered his season ERA to 2.40 and his FIP to 2.98.
The big change of late is that Suarez is inducing softer contact -- the sort of weak batted balls that he has generated throughout his big league career.
Suarez's quality of contact allowed
- First 5 starts: 42.5% hard-hit rate / 10.0% barrel rate / 88.8 mph avg. EV
- Last 4 starts: 21.6% hard-hit rate / 0.0% barrel rate / 86.2 mph avg. EV
Suarez allowed four or more runs in three of his first five starts with Boston. He only did so five times all of last season with the Phillies.
But since twirling eight innings of one-hit ball against the Blue Jays on April 27, Suarez has a 0.42 ERA that trails only Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski. The Miz is also the only pitcher with a lower expected ERA than Suarez (1.56) in that span, too, among pitchers to throw at least 20 innings. Even Suarez's old teammate, Cristopher Sánchez, has allowed a run since then, amid his dominant scoreless innings streak.
How does Suarez do this? It's a question that we've explored in depth before. He is unpredictable, using five different pitches at least 15% of the time. He deploys a three-fastball mix -- sinker, cutter, four-seam -- a tactic that we've seen grow across the game, since it's difficult for a hitter to time up a fastball when there are three pitches thrown at similar velocities yet moving in different directions. That's part of the reason why batters are just 1-for-14 off his four-seamer, even though it sits at 91.9 mph (the average left-handed pitcher throws his four-seamer 93.4 mph). All of Suarez's pitches work in conversation with one another.
"It's just his ability to pitch," interim manager Chad Tracy told reporters after Suarez blanked his former team across 5 1/3 innings on May 14. "Land anything he wants. You want the curveball below. He gets it below. You want the fastball in, he'll get it in. You want the fastball up, he gets it up. Just fun to watch him pitch."
Interestingly, command is one of the areas that Suarez still has to shore up. Despite excellent results, he's not yet pounding the strike zone like he did last year, when he posted a 51.1% zone rate. This year, his 43.9% zone rate is 12th lowest among 127 pitchers to throw at least 40 innings. Even in his strong four-start stretch, he's landing pitches in the zone just 41.9% of the time.
Suarez will try to continue trending in the right direction against a Braves lineup that entered Memorial Day averaging 5.22 runs per game, the second-highest mark in the Majors. Atlanta makes hard contact -- ranking fourth in MLB with a 9.9% team barrel rate -- and handles lefties, posting the 10th-highest OPS against southpaws (.732).
Suarez is also plenty familiar with the Braves from his time in Philadelphia. Including the postseason, he's pitched to a 3.13 ERA in 25 appearances (13 starts) against Atlanta. He allowed one run or fewer in each of his three starts against the Braves last season. And he's handled some of the Braves top hitters, including Matt Olson (.665 OPS), Michael Harris II (.300 OPS) and Ronald Acuña Jr. (.638 OPS). Including that trio, five of Atlanta's regulars have taken at least 20 plate appearances against Suarez.
As the Red Sox continue to try and claw their way back into contention, they'll need Suarez to keep pitching like a frontline starter.