Nick Martinez leaned on changeups and cutters before his Game 3 exit

Anthony Volpe had fouled off a sinker and a four-seam fastball when Nick Martinez changed speeds in the second inning. His 77.9 mph changeup drew a swing and miss at 0–2. A called strike on a 90.3 mph cutter had started the four-pitch strikeout, so the confrontation combined a taken strike, two fouls and an off-speed finish.

Martinez allowed five hits and two earned runs in 3⅔ innings at Yankee Stadium on October 7, with one walk and three strikeouts. Tampa Bay completed its ALDS sweep with a 4–3 win, but one of the runs charged to Martinez scored after he left. His outing ended at 63 pitches after a Volpe line drive hit him in the fourth, as the official game highlight records.

The complete pitch record shows a different balance from his regular season: more changeups and cutters, fewer sinkers. That shift did not produce a higher overall rate of missed swings. It gave him several ways to acquire strikes, while the Yankees put 12 pitches into play and extended his third and fourth innings.

The changeup and cutter took a larger share

Martinez threw 19 changeups and 18 cutters, a combined 37 of 63 pitches. Their 58.7% share was above the combined 47.8% in his pregame regular-season sample. His sinker fell from 31.7% of that baseline to 20.6% here. The comparison covers 2,524 physical pitches in 31 starts from March 30 through September 27; it excludes this postseason outing.

The changeup supplied four of his six misses, from 12 swings. The cutter added four called strikes and one miss. Those are different contributions: a taken cutter helped Volpe fall behind, while the changeup finished him. In the third, Martinez struck out Trent Grisham looking with a 94.5 mph sinker after falling behind 2–0. A lower sinker share did not mean the pitch disappeared from important counts.

Opponent handedness complicates the selection comparison. Martinez threw 39 pitches to left-handed hitters and 24 to right-handed hitters. Fourteen of his 19 changeups went to lefties; 10 of his 13 sinkers went to righties. Those opportunities help explain the overall mix, and the record does not establish that he arrived with a new tactical plan.

His changeup averaged 77.8 mph, compared with 78.3 in the season sample. The cutter averaged 90.2, about a mile per hour above its 89.2 baseline. Across the whole outing, six misses in 34 swings produced a 17.6% whiff rate, close to the season's 17.4%. The notable difference was pitch selection, rather than a broad increase in missed bats.

Contact and the runner left behind

The five hits included damaging contact and a much softer result. George Lombard Jr. singled against a sinker with a 102.6 mph exit speed. In the third, Ben Rice’s single against a changeup left the bat at 97.8 mph and scored Spencer Jones. Luis García Jr. followed with a 107.9 mph single against a sinker. Martinez then retired Cody Bellinger on a 98.7 mph ground ball to end the threat with two runners stranded.

In the fourth, Lombard's 69.3 mph ground ball became a single. Austin Wells then grounded a changeup into a double play, with the ball leaving his bat at 75.4 mph. Those plays show why exit speed and actual results need separate treatment: softer contact can reach safely, while another softly hit ball can produce two outs. Six of the 12 balls in play reached the 95 mph hard-hit threshold, although their average exit speed, 86.7 mph, was close to the season baseline of 86.5.

Martinez needed eight pitches in the first inning, then 16 in the second and 24 in the third. Jones's seven-pitch walk contributed to the third-inning workload. Lombard used eight pitches to open the fourth before Volpe's five-pitch plate appearance ended in a 96.6 mph line drive to Martinez. The outing ended with two outs and Volpe on first, with Tampa Bay ahead 2–1.

Ian Seymour replaced him, and Jones doubled home Volpe. Martinez's official line therefore contains two earned runs, even though only one had scored while he remained in the game. His four-seam inning averages came from just two pitches in each inning; those small samples do not support a diagnosis of fatigue or explain the injury exit.

This start supports a narrower finding than the Rays' series result: Martinez used changeups and cutters more often than in his season sample, without increasing his overall whiff rate, and New York's contact mattered throughout. A later outing would help establish whether that selection balance persists against a different handedness mix. The 63-pitch record cannot answer that question by itself.