Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
For Stephen Vogt, it’s the heater.
“His fastball command has gotten a lot better,” the Giants catcher told KNBR on Wednesday about Tyler Beede. “And he’s gotten a lot of confidence. Starting off, his fastball was pretty erratic. He was having a tough time at times repeating his offspeed. But right now, he’s got all four pitches working really well.”
For a particularly dangerous opponent, it’s the offspeed.
“It was his changeup,” Pete Alonso said recently about Beede’s most impressive pitch against him. “You gotta be geared up for 94, 95, 96. He’s got a good fastball, but I’m a fastball hitter – I see those pretty well. He didn’t give me many fastballs that I could drive.”
Whatever sticks out most about how a young pitcher has found himself might be elementary. What is not is that Beede has emerged as perhaps the most high-octane arm in a rotation that features Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija.
The 26-year-old with a pedigree — he was a first-round pick in 2014 — is living up to it after a rough start. When he was called up in early May, he was a mess; through six games, his ERA was 8.06. A team that was going nowhere had the luxury of letting him figure it out.
And he has for a team that has gone from doormat to knocking on the playoffs door.
Alonso saw Beede for the first time June 5, and the Mets teed off. He let up six runs in five innings, nine men reaching base. His stuff was there — he struck out five — but it was not harnessed.
Alonso saw Beede for the second time Friday, when Beede gave up three hits and zero runs in eight innings.
“His stuff was moving the same way,” Alonso said. “He was just executing more. For me, I was chasing, but he was executing pitches that he wasn’t executing before. He was more on the edges and the top of the zone. He just didn’t leave as many pitches over the middle as the outing before.”
Entering Beede’s outing Wednesday against the Cubs at Oracle Park, he had given up 11 earned runs in his past 37 innings (2.68). Opposing batters are hitting .199 against him in the span that started in Los Angeles, where Beede started attacking the zone more, he has said. Giants coaches found his fastball up in the zone played much better than down in the zone, which are easier to launch.
He focused on getting ahead of counts more so than making a perfect pitch. He has 12 walks in that 37-inning stretch. He had 17 walks in his first 22 1/3 innings.
“He’s putting them where he wants to,” said Vogt, who was catching Beede on Wednesday. “But to me it starts with fastball command, and he’s been doing that a lot better the last few weeks, month.”
Alonso, the star slugger with 33 home runs, did not see a different pitcher the second time around. He did see a more refined one.
“He was really efficient. Threw a lot of strikes, and they were quality strikes,” Alonso said. “That can be a huge difference — yeah, you can throw strikes, but if it’s right over the middle of the dish, those are going to get hit. He made a really good adjustment.”