Drew Rasmussen’s Changeup Turned Contact Into Outs in ALCS Game 5

Patrick Bailey had already swung through a changeup below the zone when Drew Rasmussen threw the fastest pitch of his night. The 97.2 mph four-seamer finished just above Bailey’s recorded upper boundary for a ball. Rasmussen followed it with an 89.2 mph changeup near the bottom of the zone, and Bailey grounded into the double play that ended the seventh inning.

That last confrontation captured more than Rasmussen’s six strikeouts. He used a larger share of changeups, gave Cleveland a different speed and height to cover, and turned the contact against that pitch into outs. The changeup finished only one of his strikeouts, but it produced ten balls in play, eight of them grounders, without allowing a hit.

Rasmussen finished with seven innings, four hits, one run and one walk in Tampa Bay’s 3-1 victory over Cleveland in ALCS Game 5 on October 18, 2026, at Progressive Field. His 95 pitches helped move the Rays within one win of the World Series. The complete record supports a change in how often he used an established pitch, with better contact results than his first start in the series, rather than a sudden increase in fastball speed.

A changeup increase that survives the lineup comparison

The full regular-season comparison contains 2,660 physical pitches in 30 starts from March 26 through September 22. Changeups accounted for 354 of them, or 13.3%. In Game 5, Rasmussen threw 27 in 95 pitches, a 28.4% share and an increase of 15.1 percentage points. His sinker share fell from 23.8% to 14.7%, while the cutter fell from 28.9% to 25.3%.

Cleveland’s lineup supplied one plausible explanation. Eighty of Rasmussen’s 95 pitches went to hitters batting left-handed, and every changeup did. The regular-season sample contained a smaller left-handed share. A pitcher facing more hitters on the side against which he normally uses a changeup can increase its overall percentage without changing his approach to either side.

That does not account for all of this increase. Against left-handed hitters alone, Rasmussen went from 285 changeups in 1,606 regular-season pitches, 17.7%, to 27 in 80, 33.8%. His October 12 ALCS Game 1 start offers another useful comparison: 76 of its 91 pitches also went to left-handed hitters, almost the same opponent mix as Game 5, but only 11 of those 76 pitches were changeups, 14.5%.

The added use was not confined to strikeout counts. Rasmussen began seven of his 25 Game 5 plate appearances with changeups, compared with 47 changeups among 671 recorded first pitches during the regular season. He also threw 13 changeups among his 34 two-strike pitches. The pitch was part of establishing counts as well as finishing them.

Different locations, with the fastball still available

Rasmussen’s four-seamer averaged 95.8 mph in Game 5, almost identical to its 95.8 mph regular-season average. The changeup averaged 89.1 mph, giving the two pitches a separation of about 6.7 mph. The useful difference was in the choices they presented, including the low changeup and upper-zone fastball in Bailey’s final at-bat.

Bailey fouled off the opening four-seamer, missed a changeup at 0.710 feet above the ground, then took that 97.2 mph fastball at 3.335 feet. His recorded zone extended from 1.627 to 3.224 feet. The last changeup crossed at 1.787 feet and left his bat at 80.8 mph. The locations establish what Bailey had to cover; they do not reveal Rasmussen’s intended target or prove how early Bailey recognized either pitch.

The broader location record was more varied than four pitches. Twelve of 27 changeups were classified inside the tracking zone, while hitters swung at nine of the 15 outside it. That 9-for-15 chase count is useful evidence of pitches drawing decisions beyond the zone, but the pitch also got two called strikes and several grounders on swings inside it.

In his postgame news conference, Rasmussen said the Rays had wanted a similar plan in Game 1, but the changeup’s movement and command had not been there. In Game 5, he said, it gave him more opportunity to attack alongside his cutter. The comparison fits increased reliance on the pitch, rather than evidence that he invented a new plan between starts.

The main return was contact, not an exceptional whiff rate

The changeup generated five misses in 19 swings, a 26.3% whiff rate. That was better than one miss in nine swings in Game 1, but below its regular-season 66 in 187, or 35.3%. More changeups did not produce a higher miss rate than his season norm. The four-seamer finished three of Rasmussen’s six strikeouts and the cutter finished two.

The contact against the changeup averaged 80.6 mph across ten measured balls in play. Eight were grounders, with Kwan’s first-inning foul flyout and Travis Bazzana’s seventh-inning popup accounting for the others. Across the whole outing, Cleveland put 18 balls in play with an average exit velocity of 84.4 mph, compared with 94.3 mph on 18 balls in play in Game 1. Three of the Game 5 balls reached the 95 mph hard-hit threshold, compared with nine in Game 1.

The zero-hit changeup result still benefited from what happened after contact. José Ramírez hit one 96.6 mph grounder that became an out. Baseball Savant’s expected batting averages for all ten changeup balls in play sum to approximately 1.67 expected hits, compared with the actual zero. That calculation adds rounded per-ball estimates and is not an official aggregate statistic. It cautions against treating ten outs as a repeatable hit-suppression rate, even though most of this contact was modest.

Cleveland also found a route back into the game against the cutter. Kwan and Ramírez singled off it in the sixth, putting runners at the corners. A changeup groundout by Chase DeLauter brought home Kwan, then Rasmussen got Jo Adell to pop out and strand Ramírez. Three of the four hits he allowed came on cutters, a useful limit on describing the entire repertoire as equally difficult to hit.

Enough speed remained for the last inning

Rasmussen needed 21 pitches in the first, but only 19 combined in the next two innings. He entered the seventh at 83 pitches and finished it in 12, recovering after Nathaniel Lowe’s leadoff single. Bazzana’s seven-pitch popup extended the inning before Bailey’s double play ended it.

His four-seam averages were lower in the fifth and sixth than in the second, but the seventh-inning average returned to 95.9 mph across four pitches, and pitch 94 was his fastest of the night. The inning samples range from three to six four-seamers. They show why a simple downward fatigue narrative would miss the finish; they cannot establish his physical condition.

The next test is whether Rasmussen keeps using the changeup this often against left-handed hitters, and whether it continues to produce useful contact when some grounders find holes. Game 5 supplied evidence of a broader role for the pitch within his existing repertoire. Its contribution was visible in the counts he started, the swings below the zone and the double play that let him hand over a two-run lead after seven.