Jack Leiter just keeps getting better and better.
Continued improvement has essentially been the theme of the Rangers right-hander’s Major League career so far. After a poor debut campaign in 2024, Leiter found his footing early in 2025 and made another leap after last season’s All-Star break.
And even though it’s only been two starts -- hardly enough of a sample size to tell for sure -- Leiter may have reached another level already. The No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 Draft has 17 strikeouts in just 11 innings, pitching to a 2.45 ERA in his first two outings of 2026.
Can he keep it going? The Dodgers, whom Leiter will face at 9:10 p.m. ET on Saturday in Los Angeles, will be an important barometer for the righty’s nascent breakout season. But if Leiter can pass the test, he could be on the way to a special year as part of a talented Texas rotation.
Here’s a look inside Leiter’s strong early-season start.
An improved arsenal
In 2026, Leiter is seeing considerably more movement on each one of his five principal pitches. Four of those five offerings have seen improvements in both horizontal and vertical movement this season when compared to pitches thrown at similar velocities and release points, with Leiter’s breaking pitches seeing the greatest leaps.
Slider
2025: +0.7 inches of vertical drop vs. comparable
2026: +2.9 inches
Curveball
2025: -0.4 inches of vertical drop vs. comparable
2026: +2.5 inches
Leiter also added a new pitch to his repertoire: a cut fastball, featuring a grip he learned from Red Sox ace lefty Garrett Crochet. While Leiter did throw a cutter in his 2024 debut season, he threw the pitch just 12 times all season (1.8% usage rate).
Through just two starts in 2026, Leiter has thrown 13 cutters, and the early results have been encouraging: Opposing hitters are 1-for-5 against the pitch with a pair of strikeouts.
If Leiter can keep finding success with the new offering, it’ll go a long way toward bolstering what’s now a six-pitch arsenal.
“I think it kind of fits what I was trying to accomplish with going deeper into games and throwing more innings this year,” Leiter told MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry during Spring Training.
Whiffs galore
No matter what he’s throwing, Leiter is missing bats in large quantities.
After his first two outings against the Orioles and Reds, the righty boasts a 45.3% whiff rate that ranks second in all of MLB (min. 50 swings). The sample size is small, but Leiter has gotten gaudy whiff numbers on practically every pitch.
Leiter’s whiff rates, by pitch type, 2026
Curveball: 75% (3 whiffs / 4 swings)
Slider: 60% (9 whiffs / 15 swings)
Changeup: 48.4% (15 whiffs / 31 swings)
Four-seam fastball: 42.9% (9 whiffs / 21 swings)
Cutter: 37.5% (3 whiffs / 8 swings)
Sinker: 0% (0 whiffs / 7 swings)
Leiter’s sinker is his least effective offering -- his lone home run allowed this season, hit by Gunnar Henderson on March 30, came on the two-seamer -- but most of his other pitches have avoided much damage. Hitters are 1-for-11 with six strikeouts on Leiter’s impressive slider, and his curve and new cutter have been hard to square up, too.
Overall, Leiter’s whiff rate is WAY up from a 24.3% mark in 2025, which ranked in the 43rd percentile of Major League pitchers. So far, Leiter’s 21% spike in whiff rate is the fifth-biggest increase of any qualifying pitcher, year over year.
Cutting down free passes
Walks were a major issue for Leiter in his first two Major League seasons, but that has changed so far in 2026.
Leiter issued 17 free passes in just 35 2/3 innings in 2024, when he posted an unsightly 8.83 ERA in nine games (six starts). In 2025, he walked 67 batters, the sixth most in the American League. With just two walks in 11 innings this season, Leiter is off on the right track, cutting what was a 10.3% walk rate from his first two years to just 4.5% (85th percentile) in 2026.
Oddly, that’s despite throwing fewer strikes than before: Early on, Leiter is running a career-low 44.1% zone rate. But with hitters chasing more out of the zone and whiffing at a much higher rate, it’s working for the young right-hander.
So far in 2026, pretty much everything is.