Gore’s Opening Day domination set a personal record for him while also setting the best Opening Day starting pitching performance in Nationals’ history!
Now you see it — now you don’t. Yesterday on Opening Day, MacKenzie Gore was performing illusions on the mound like David Copperfield. Imagine inducing 50 swings and 40 percent of those resulted in no contact. In all, 13 strikeouts with just five balls in play while facing the minimum 18 batters over 6.0 innings. One measly hit to spoil six innings of perfection. In baseball history, only José Berríos had a better GameScore in a 6.0 inning performance, besting Gore by 1 point over his 83 mark which was also the best in Nationals’ history on an Opening Day.
In fact, only two other pitchers have matched Gore in that GameScore mark in baseball history, and his teammate, DJ Herz, did it last year on the same exact line as Gore. Herz did it against the Marlins on June 15. Is that comparing apples to oranges? That is hard to do in comparison as that Marlins lineup had nobody batting over .243 by the end of that game. The Phillies are a very good offensive team.
Some would say Gore bested Berríos because the Nats’ lefty tied Bob Gibson‘s Opening Day in 1967 with the 0 R, 0 BB, 13 K statline. But Gibson had the advantage of pitching downhill off of a slope 50 percent higher than the modern mound at 10 inches which became the standard after the 1968 season. Still, amazing history set by Gore, and any positive comparison to Gibson should put you in awe.
“Well, we got to two strikes a lot, and we did it pretty quick. And that just gives you the opportunity to strike guys out when you get to two strikes.”
— Gore said after the game
There was a plan — and Gore executed in a showdown against the Phillies’ starter Zack Wheeler who gave up one-run over his 6.0 innings. The way you beat an ace is by throwing zeroes — and that is what Gore did. He did his job. The Nats bullpen and some of the Nats’ lineup didn’t do theirs.
Yesterday, you might have noticed that Gore was throwing a two-pitch mix of fastballs/sliders to lefties with the addition of two pitches notes as curveballs by Baseball Savant that could have been sliders that were misclassified. The sliders seemed to vary at different speeds with more horizontal movement like the sweeper.
“It’s just a lot harder [to hit] when there’s more separation between the heater and the breaking ball, and it was working. So that was it.”
— Gore said after the game about the change of speeds
Then Gore opened up the full arsenal sans the slider against the right-handed batters while showing them fastball/curveball/changeup/cutter. By the way, Gore’s swing & miss rate on the slider was 80 percent in the game.
In an illusion, the eyes send a message to the brain that tricks it into what the illusionist wants you to see. In baseball, by the time the deception is picked up there is not enough time to change the swing decision. Gore didn’t need a Houdini Act, he just needed to execute the plan, and he did it. The key is tunneling every pitch to look like a fastball going near Paul Lynde’s center square then veer off that path at the last split-second so the baseball bat only connects with that combination of N₂O₂CO₂ which is common air.
Of Gore’s 93 pitches, only six weren’t tunneled. Bottle this up and try to repeat this next week against the Blue Jays. Gore did his job in spectacular fashion. That goes back to control what you can control and pass the baton. Unfortunately the baton was fumbled and bungled by the Nationals’ bullpen. Don’t fret, that was just one game. There are at least 161 more games to go in the marathon.
