St. Paul – Cory Lewis has been battling through one of the longest seasons of his career. The former Twins Minor League Pitcher of the Year has been going through the worst season of his young career, pitching to a 6.66 ERA in 52 ⅔ innings across 15 outings, 10 of which were starts.
However, Lewis has been improving since he returned from a stint on the 7-day IL with a left hamstring injury. He had a 9.42 ERA, 2.27 WHIP, and .346 opponents average in 28 ⅔ innings when the Saints placed him on the IL on May 30. Since returning, he’s pitched to a 3.38 ERA and .169 opponents average in 24 innings of work because he put more emphasis on throwing his knuckleball.
“We’ve upped the usage of the knuckleball, which has been a big help,” said Lewis. “Honestly, just throwing my best pitch more has been the biggest thing we’ve focused on.”
Lewis has a slider, changeup, curveball, and cutter to complement his fastball and knuckleball. He continues to mix up his usage of each of those pitchers with each batter he faces. Still, he was trying too hard to keep hitters guessing when he was getting ahead in counts early this year.
“I was kind of just nibbling and working around the zone, whereas recently, I’ve just been attacking hitters,” Lewis said. “Kind of a mindset change, I guess. And then obviously the knuckleball being in zone helps out a lot, and it doesn’t produce a lot of damage, so it definitely gives me some confidence of letting it rip in there.”
Minor League Baseball doesn’t have Statcast data available to show the splits in whiffs on specific pitches, as it does for Major League pitchers. However, Lewis’s splits between pre-IL stint and post-IL stint show he’s getting better control of the strike zone and adding up on swings and misses.
Over the first nine outings, Lewis totaled 21 walks and 29 strikeouts over 28 ⅔ innings, making out to a 14.1% walk rate and 19.5% strikeout rate. During the last six, he’s walked 19 and struck out 35, marking an 18.1% walk rate and 33.3% strikeout rate. The increase in walks correlates with Lewis’s efforts to strike out more batters and get more out of his knuckleball.
“I think with that, throwing the knuckleball a lot more in the beginning, he was having a tough time kind of commanding it, which he wasn’t used to throwing it that much,” said Saints manager Toby Gardenhire. “The more he’s done it, the better his command has been with that thing, and it’s nasty.”
Lewis also had to battle through mental hurdles due to the struggles he faced during those first nine outings. It was the worst stretch at any point in his career on the mound, and he would have liked to work through the struggles without an IL stint. The time off helped him to regain his confidence and string a few good outings in a row.
“The biggest thing I think is just the mental side of it because early on it was like, ‘Dang, what the heck is going on?’” he said. “I was trying to pinpoint what was going on, but in reality, it was just getting ahead of hitters was probably the biggest thing. Then stringing those good outings together really helps me to, or makes it easier to build on top of it every outing.”
While the Saints have used Lewis in a dual starter and reliever role, he’s still being worked on a typical starter schedule, pitching every fifth or sixth day with the Saints. He’ll continue to work on the knuckleballs’ effectiveness, especially with the velocity. Lewis can hit 88 MPH with the knuckleball, faster than any other pitcher has thrown that pitch. If he can command his knuckleball with velocity, he will become one of the hardest pitchers to hit in the majors.
“He’s going to continue to get better with this and keep it going with that because it’s fun when he goes out there,” he said. “The sky is the limit, like nothing’s new, and he’ll keep doing it.”
“Basically, yeah, just keep doing what I’ve been doing, but just a higher clip, obviously,” said Lewis. “And been seeing good results with it, so it’s been kind of nice.”