Gaddis reduced his slider share and found seven misses in Game 5

Chase Meidroth fouled a bunt attempt against Hunter Gaddis’ 94.3 mph fastball in the seventh inning. Gaddis then threw three changeups: a 78.2 mph swinging strike, an 80.0 mph ball and a 78.8 mph foul tip that completed the strikeout. The right-handed hitter’s plate appearance showed the changeup contributing beyond a conventional left-handed matchup.

Gaddis struck out four White Sox over 1⅓ innings in Cleveland’s 2–0 ALDS Game 5 win at Progressive Field on October 10. He allowed two singles without a walk and threw 24 pitches. He completed the seventh and recorded the first out of the eighth before Cade Smith took over with a runner aboard.

Compared with his regular-season relief work, Gaddis threw fewer sliders and more fastballs and changeups. The changed shares accompanied seven misses, but did not prevent all contact from becoming a hit. Both balls put into play against him became singles despite recorded exit speeds below 77 mph.

The changeup supplied a different route to strikes

The slider fell from 49.8% of 983 pitches across 68 regular-season relief appearances to six of 24 pitches, or 25.0%, in Game 5. Four-seamers rose from 29.5% to 41.7%, and changeups from 19.9% to 33.3%. The slider still finished two strikeouts, so its reduced share did not make it incidental to the result.

The changeup produced three misses in four attempts, against two in seven for the fastball and two in three for the slider. The entire outing had seven misses in 14 physical attempts, a 50.0% whiff rate against 29.5% in the baseline. That denominator retains Meidroth’s foul bunt. Savant’s summary lists 13 swings without the bunt, which would produce 53.8%; both methods count seven misses.

His changeup averaged 79.3 mph, 15.3 mph below the outing’s four-seam average. The Meidroth sequence exposed that large speed difference immediately after the foul bunt. Three of Gaddis’ five changeups to right-handed hitters came in this plate appearance. That concentrated sequence is useful evidence, but also shows how a single confrontation can influence a short outing’s pitch mix.

Across the outing, he threw 15 pitches to left-handed hitters and nine to right-handed hitters. His regular-season sample was more evenly divided. Yet the increased changeup share was concentrated against right-handers: five of nine pitches, compared with 49 of 484 in the season comparison. Against left-handers, changeups were three of 15, below their baseline share of 147 of 499. The overall increase therefore conceals different choices within the two hitter groups.

The singles still counted

Tristan Peters singled in the seventh on a slider measured at 76.8 mph off the bat. Sam Antonacci’s eighth-inning single came on a changeup at 66.3 mph. Neither met the 95 mph hard-hit threshold. These measurements describe limited contact speed; they cannot establish that Gaddis intended those outcomes or that similar contact will reliably turn into outs.

The first single was followed by two strikeouts to complete the seventh. In the eighth, Gaddis struck out Randal Grichuk before Antonacci’s single ended his appearance. Smith then struck out Kyle Teel and retired Miguel Vargas, stranding the inherited runner. That resolution belongs in the account of Gaddis’ scoreless line.

Gaddis threw 14 pitches in the seventh and 10 in his partial eighth. His four-seamer averaged 94.9 mph on six pitches in the seventh and 94.1 on four in the eighth. Those small samples do not diagnose fatigue, and his recorded speed does not supply a reason for the pitching change.

The outing supports a narrower conclusion than a permanent repertoire redesign: Gaddis obtained misses from all three pitch types while using the slider less often, and a right-handed changeup sequence influenced the totals. Another appearance would test whether that matchup choice recurs across more hitters. The two singles also remain a reminder that low measured exit speed does not guarantee an out.