The changeup left Blake Snell’s hand looking hittable. By the time Jackson Chourio realized what was happening, his bat had already betrayed him.
On October 13, 2025, Snell was dismantling the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. American Family Field was packed with 41,737 fans, but Milwaukee’s lineup couldn’t give them much to celebrate.
The Dodgers left-hander threw eight scoreless innings, allowed one hit, and struck out 10. His changeup accounted for 14 swinging strikes, and the Brewers spent most of the night swinging through pitches that seemed ready to be crushed.
Chourio’s strikeout captured the problem. Snell showed him one changeup at nearly 87 mph, then followed with another below 80. The young outfielder had already seen the pitch, but he still couldn’t time it.
Snell wasn’t throwing harder than everyone else. He was making the baseball arrive when hitters least expected it.
In an era when almost every bullpen features high-velocity arms, that sounds almost unfair.
October hitters prepare for fastballs, study opposing pitchers, and attack anything that looks remotely hittable. But what happens when their greatest strength, the willingness to swing, becomes exactly what a pitcher wants?
The Changeup Has Always Had a Place in October Baseball
The changeup isn’t some newly discovered answer to modern hitting. Pitchers have spent generations using it to embarrass hitters who load up for fastballs.
What has changed is how teams develop, measure, and deploy the pitch.
Consider Stephen Strasburg during Washington’s 2019 World Series championship run. The former first-overall pick arrived in the majors with a blazing fastball, but his secondary pitches became just as important to his postseason success.
His changeup had already established its October credentials. During the 2017 postseason, it produced a 68.8% whiff rate, one of the highest single-pitch marks recorded in the modern pitch-tracking era.
Two years later, Strasburg offered another lesson in deception during Game 6 of the World Series against Houston.
The Astros hammered several balls early, including Alex Bregman’s first-inning home run. Washington’s scouting staff noticed something troubling: Strasburg appeared to be revealing his pitches through his glove positioning.
He made a small adjustment, moving his glove to hide the tell.
Suddenly, Houston’s advantage disappeared.
Strasburg leaned particularly heavily on his curveball that night, mixing it with his fastball and changeup. He finished with 8 1/3 innings of two-run baseball, forcing a decisive Game 7 that Washington eventually won.
The lesson extended beyond any single offspeed pitch. Hitters who know what’s coming become dangerous. Pitchers who conceal that information can survive even the fiercest lineup.
That night in Houston showed how much could change when a pitcher stopped giving hitters an early clue. Strasburg needed only a subtle glove adjustment to disrupt an offense that seemed comfortable with his delivery.
Six years later, Snell would attack that same problem from a different angle. Rather than simply disguising which pitch he planned to throw, he made one pitch behave like several.
Other pitchers took the deception further, pairing harder changeups with movement that sent barrels chasing baseballs they could no longer reach.
The underlying idea hadn’t changed since Strasburg’s championship run. Give hitters a reason to expect one thing, then deliver another.
Modern pitch design simply gave pitchers more ways to pull it off.
Blake Snell Changes Speeds While Tarik Skubal Changes the Shape
A devastating changeup begins with a credible fastball. If hitters don’t respect the heater, they can sit back and wait for something slower.
Snell and Tarik Skubal understand that relationship, although their approaches reveal two different kinds of deception.
One makes hitters guess when the ball will arrive. The other makes them question where it will finish.
Snell makes one pitch behave like several
Against Milwaukee in the 2025 NLCS, Snell didn’t simply alternate fastballs and changeups.
He kept throwing changeups.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy pointed to catcher Will Smith’s unusual sequencing afterward. Rather than switching predictably between pitches, Smith repeatedly called for the same offspeed offering.
Milwaukee couldn’t solve it.
Snell threw changeups on 37% of his 103 pitches, well above his 23.6% regular-season usage. Against right-handed hitters, he became even more aggressive.
Of the 62 pitches Snell threw to Milwaukee’s righties, 35 were changeups. That represented 56.5% of his selections against those hitters.
The adjustment became even sharper after the first pitch. Pitching analyst Lance Brozdowski found that Snell used changeups on 64% of subsequent pitches to righties, compared with a 34% regular-season rate.
This wasn’t a pitcher blindly throwing his favorite offering. Snell identified what Milwaukee was prepared to attack and kept refusing to cooperate.
Chourio learned how uncomfortable that approach could become.
Earlier in their confrontation, Snell delivered an 86.8-mph changeup that dropped 26 inches. Chourio managed to foul it away.
Later, Snell returned with a 79.3-mph version. This one dropped 39 inches, and Chourio swung too early for the strikeout.
Same pitch classification. Completely different problem.
Across the 2025 postseason, Snell’s changeups ranged from 79.3 to 89.2 mph. That nearly 10-mph difference gave hitters another layer of information to process.
His 2025 playoff changeup eventually produced a 65.5% whiff rate, one of the highest single-pitch postseason marks of the pitch-tracking era.
Snell wasn’t relying on one spectacular breaking movement. He was disrupting a hitter’s internal clock, sometimes several times within the same at-bat.
Skubal keeps the speed but makes the ball disappear
Skubal’s changeup attacks hitters through a different combination of velocity, movement, and fastball deception.
During his 2024 and 2025 postseason appearances with Detroit, the left-hander recorded 27 strikeouts on changeups. No pitcher collected more strikeouts with any single pitch type over those two postseasons.
Hitters missed on an astonishing 71% of their swings against it, according to MLB’s postseason Statcast review.
That dominance became impossible to ignore during Game 5 of the 2025 American League Division Series against Seattle.
Skubal had already faced the Mariners earlier in the series. Their lineup knew his fastball, slider, sinker, and changeup. They also had recent experience attacking certain parts of his arsenal.
So he changed the mix.
In Game 2, Skubal threw changeups 22% of the time. For the winner-take-all Game 5, that figure climbed to 33%, while his slider usage dropped from 18% to 7%.
He also increased his four-seam fastball usage, strengthening the contrast with his best offspeed weapon.
Seattle spent six innings trying to catch up.
Skubal struck out 13, allowed two hits, and walked nobody. Detroit eventually lost 3-2 in 15 innings, but its ace had already delivered one of the postseason’s most intimidating pitching performances.
The difference between Snell and Skubal matters.
Snell can manipulate the changeup’s speed until hitters lose their timing. Skubal pairs upper-90s fastball velocity with a changeup that dives and runs away from the barrel.
One pitcher stretches the timing window. The other makes the hitting zone seem to move.
Both leave aggressive hitters looking foolish.
Los Angeles clearly valued that skill. On August 2, 2026, the Dodgers officially acquired Skubal from Detroit in a blockbuster trade involving outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-handed pitchers River Ryan and Brady Smith.
The trade brought the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner into a rotation that already featured Snell. MLB’s official transaction reporting confirmed the deal, and both pitchers appeared on Los Angeles’ 2026 NLCS roster.
Why Cristopher Sánchez Makes Fastball Hunters Miserable
The next variation comes from Cristopher Sánchez, whose sinker-changeup combination creates a different kind of nightmare.
Sánchez doesn’t need to disguise his pitch behind a four-seamer riding through the upper part of the strike zone. Instead, he uses a hard sinker that drives toward the lower half of the plate.
His changeup begins along a similar path before moving farther away from the hitter’s expectations.
Both pitches can look like strikes. Only one arrives at the speed the hitter has prepared to handle.
That distinction helped Sánchez become one of baseball’s most effective changeup specialists in 2025.
During the regular season, his changeup held opponents to a .170 batting average and .243 slugging percentage. Statcast credited it with a 45.1% whiff rate.
Then came October 4 against the Dodgers.
Shohei Ohtani couldn’t solve Philadelphia’s changing speeds
The first confrontation set the tone.
Shohei Ohtani stepped into the batter’s box at Citizens Bank Park to begin Game 1 of the National League Division Series. Philadelphia’s crowd roared as Sánchez delivered his opening pitch.
Ohtani swung through a 95-mph fastball. Next came an 86-mph changeup, producing another empty swing.
The Dodgers superstar called time and adjusted his arm guard.
Sánchez returned with another changeup, this one low and inside. Ohtani chased, and the Phillies had their first out.
Philadelphia’s left-hander struck him out twice more, although those later strikeouts came on sinkers rather than changeups.
That distinction explains the brilliance of the sequence.
Once Ohtani had to respect the changeup, Sánchez could attack him with the harder pitch. The sinker didn’t disappear from the equation. It became more dangerous because of what the hitter had already seen.
Sánchez threw 38 changeups among his 94 pitches that evening. Those offerings produced 12 of his 18 swinging strikes.
Philadelphia eventually lost 5-3, but Sánchez had struck out Ohtani three times and finished with eight strikeouts across 5 2/3 innings.
The Dodgers managed to win despite one of their greatest offensive weapons struggling badly.
For opposing pitchers, the blueprint was unmistakable.
A great changeup doesn’t need to finish every at-bat. Sometimes its greatest value comes from making the next fastball harder to hit.
Why Aggressive Postseason Hitters Keep Falling Into the Trap
October hitters don’t suddenly abandon their discipline. They chase because the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand looks like something they can drive.
The real trap begins before the swing.
Imagine a hitter facing a 2-1 count with runners in scoring position. He knows the pitcher needs to avoid falling farther behind. A fastball in the zone could become his best chance to do damage.
He prepares for velocity.
The pitcher delivers a changeup with the same aggressive arm action, and the hitter’s decision becomes uncomfortable.
Swing early, and he risks rolling over the pitch or missing entirely. Wait too long, and a genuine fastball might beat him.
A 1-2 count presents another problem. The hitter must protect the plate, but a changeup diving beneath the strike zone can tempt him into chasing a ball that never needed defending.
Neither situation guarantees a strikeout. Major league hitters can punish poorly located changeups, especially when pitchers leave them high or make their intentions obvious.
Still, every successful fastball creates another reason for the hitter to fear being late.
The smallest timing mistake can wreck an entire at-bat
The challenge isn’t simply identifying a slower pitch.
A hitter must recognize its speed, determine whether it will remain in the strike zone, and get the barrel to the right place.
All of that happens while the ball travels roughly 60 feet.
At the time of commitment, the pitch might still resemble the fastball that started the sequence.
For a right-handed batter facing a left-handed changeup specialist, arm-side movement adds another complication. The ball can drift away from the barrel while also arriving later than expected.
Contact becomes weak. Groundballs replace line drives. Hitters reach for pitches they should have left alone.
And when October games turn on one mistake, preventing hard contact can matter just as much as collecting another strikeout.
The Numbers Behind Baseball’s Growing Changeup Obsession
The modern changeup’s rise isn’t limited to a few October stars.
Hitters have spent years adjusting their swings to handle high-velocity fastballs. Pitchers have responded by making those fastballs harder to anticipate, often with a changeup that looks nearly identical coming out of the hand.
A 2026 NBC Sports review found that changeup usage climbed from 10.3% in 2025 to 11.2% in 2026. That might look like a small shift until you consider the volume. Major league pitchers threw 6,578 more changeups than the previous season.
The bigger story is what happened when hitters tried to attack them.
Across the 2026 regular season, batters managed just a .618 OPS against changeups, compared with .768 against four-seam fastballs. For hitters gearing up to crush velocity, the slower pitch often turned their strongest swings into empty ones.
Changeups generated swinging strikes on 14.9% of all pitches thrown, while four-seamers managed only 9.1%. That difference becomes especially painful in October, when a single missed opportunity with runners aboard can decide a game.
Even hitters who made contact rarely found the barrel cleanly.
Only 5.6% of batted balls against changeups qualified as barrels, nearly half the 9.7% rate allowed by four-seamers. The changeup also limited hitters to a 31.8% hard-hit rate, compared with 44.3% against four-seam fastballs.
Think about what that means for an aggressive lineup.
A hitter can identify something that looks like a fastball, commit to a powerful swing, and still produce a routine grounder. The pitcher doesn’t need a strikeout. He just needs the barrel to arrive a little too early.
Those league-wide numbers cover different pitchers, hitters, and situations. They don’t prove that every changeup beats every fastball, but they help explain why teams keep investing in the pitch.
The changeup itself is also changing.
Pitchers once relied heavily on slowing the ball enough to disrupt timing. Modern grips, including variations of the kick-change, allow them to create sharper movement without sacrificing as much velocity.
Across MLB, the average changeup increased from 85.85 mph in 2025 to 86.03 mph in 2026.
That slight increase reflects a larger shift. Pitchers increasingly want hitters to misread the ball’s movement rather than rely exclusively on a massive velocity gap.
Snell’s slower version remains devastating. Skubal and Sánchez show how harder changeups can be equally uncomfortable.
Baseball hasn’t settled on one perfect design. Its pitchers have simply found more ways to make the same basic deception work.
October’s Next Adjustment Will Begin in the Batter’s Box
The changeup’s growing popularity guarantees that hitters will search for answers.
Some will adjust their timing earlier in counts. Others will narrow their swing decisions and refuse to chase pitches that begin below their preferred hitting zone.
Scouting departments will examine release points, grip tendencies, and sequencing patterns. Batters will study video of pitchers who favor changeups against right-handed hitters, especially with two strikes.
But knowing the scouting report and executing against it are different challenges.
A hitter might recognize Snell’s willingness to throw consecutive changeups. That doesn’t tell him whether the next one will arrive at 79 mph or 89.
Skubal presents another problem. If a batter starts sitting on his changeup, the fastball can suddenly appear even quicker.
Sánchez can build the opposite trap. Hitters who become preoccupied with his sinking offspeed pitch may find themselves taking a perfectly located sinker for strike three.
October baseball rewards the player who makes the better decision under pressure. The changeup makes that decision harder without requiring a pitcher to overpower every opponent.
Still, its rise carries risks. Hitters can crush changeups that stay in the middle of the plate, and an overly predictable pitch mix gives opponents something to exploit. The best arms will continue mixing speeds and locations rather than turning one successful offering into a predictable habit.
That constant adjustment makes the next postseason matchup compelling.
A hitter can enter the box with a detailed plan, recognize the pitcher’s tendencies, and still swing through a ball he thought he understood.
Snell did it to Milwaukee. Skubal did it to Seattle. Sánchez did it to Ohtani.
Their methods differed, but the result was familiar: empty swings against pitches that looked like opportunities.
The fastball will always command respect. Its velocity forces hitters to prepare for the quickest possible arrival.
But the changeup has become baseball’s most dangerous reminder that preparation can work against the person doing it.
With two strikes, the crowd roaring, and a playoff game balanced on the next pitch, the hitter has almost no time to decide.
The pitcher already knows what’s coming.
The hitter only thinks he does.
READ MORE: Beating the Trap: What Exit Velocities Tell Us About Hitting Off-Speed Pitches
FAQs
Q1. Why is the changeup so hard to hit in October?
The changeup looks like a fastball coming out of the pitcher’s hand but arrives slower or moves differently. Aggressive hitters often swing too early.
Q2. How did Blake Snell dominate the Brewers with his changeup?
Snell varied his changeup between roughly 79 and 89 mph during the 2025 postseason. Milwaukee struggled to adjust its timing, and Snell struck out 10 in Game 1.
Q3. What makes Tarik Skubal’s changeup so effective?
Skubal pairs a powerful fastball with a changeup that drops and moves away from hitters. That combination makes both pitches harder to recognize.
Q4. Why did Cristopher Sánchez strike out Shohei Ohtani three times?
Sánchez used a changeup to strike out Ohtani in their first matchup. He then caught Ohtani looking at sinkers in two later at-bats.
Q5. Are MLB pitchers throwing more changeups?
Yes. League-wide changeup usage rose from 10.3% in 2025 to 11.2% in 2026 as pitchers leaned more heavily on deception and weak contact.
