October has barely opened, but the Wild Card round already left a few fingerprints on the Division Series. The White Sox brought premium heat, Ben Rice kept punishing fastballs, Nick Pivetta’s four-seamer looked alive again, and Tyler Mahle turned a splitter into a full-game plan.
Two or three games do not settle much in baseball. Still, the clubs moving on have found encouraging ways to win — particularly when the matchup narrows to one pitch, one hitter and one trip through an order.
Quick facts
- Chicago’s average four-seam and sinker velocity climbed from 94.7 mph in the regular season to 97.1 mph in the AL Wild Card Series.
- Jordan Hicks retired all 10 Astros he faced over two appearances, needing only 38 pitches.
- Ben Rice collected five Wild Card hits, each struck at 95 mph or harder and each coming against a fastball.
- Nick Pivetta held the Cubs to one run while getting 10 outs in San Diego’s Game 2 win.
- Tyler Mahle threw a career-high 55 splitters against Philadelphia and got five of his six strikeouts with the pitch.
The White Sox arrived with the hardest team fastball of the postseason so far. Their 97.1 mph average on four-seamers and sinkers represented a major jump from their regular-season mark, which had been tied with the Yankees for ninth in the Majors.
Hicks was at the center of that charge. The 30-year-old right-hander averaged 100.1 mph with his four-seamer and sinker, trailing only Mason Miller and Jhoan Duran among Wild Card pitchers. He threw 15 pitches at triple digits or better, and three of his four strikeouts came on fastballs clocked at 99.9 mph or more.
That version of Hicks did not show up consistently early in the year. After a June lat strain sent him to the injured list, he adjusted his arm slot upward by 10 degrees, moving into a more traditional three-quarters delivery. The change added more than six inches of induced vertical break to his four-seamer between April and September.
Since returning on June 21, Hicks has posted a 38.0% strikeout rate over at least 30 innings, fifth best in baseball over that span. It is a sharp reversal from 2025, when his 18.5% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career. Against Houston, the new-look fastball played like a bullpen weapon built for October.
Rice brings an equally clear challenge to the Yankees’ next opponents: do not expect a fastball to get by him simply because it is high or hard. He led qualified hitters with an .843 slugging percentage and plus-24 batting run value against four-seam fastballs during the regular season.
When sinkers are included, Rice still led the sport with a .668 slugging percentage against fastballs, 50 points ahead of the next hitter. He was especially dangerous on elevated heat, posting an .853 slugging percentage against fastballs in the middle of the zone or above.
The Red Sox saw the problem firsthand in Game 1. Left-hander Payton Tolle, whose four-seamer held opponents to a .188 average during the season, opened Rice’s first plate appearance with four consecutive heaters. Rice drove the fourth into the right-center gap for a double.
Tolle changed the script in the next meeting, refusing to throw Rice a four-seamer before putting him away with a curveball. Boston still threw Rice 23 fastballs out of 40 total pitches in the series, a decision Tampa Bay will study closely with Drew Rasmussen lined up for Game 1 and Freddy Peralta also representing a high-fastball presence.
Pivetta and Mahle give their clubs a route forward
San Diego did not need Pivetta to be a workhorse against the Cubs. After missing five months with pitching-elbow inflammation, he returned on Labor Day and logged a 1.45 ERA over 18 2/3 regular-season innings. His Wild Card assignment was about getting the ball cleanly to the bullpen.
He did exactly that, allowing one run while recording 10 outs against a Chicago lineup that had been baseball’s best offense. Cubs hitters managed one hit in 10 at-bats against his four-seamer, striking out three times, while the pitch generated five swings and misses on 16 swings.
Pivetta’s fastball comes from a steep, over-the-top release. Only four Major League pitchers had released fastballs from a higher point this season among those with at least 250 such pitches. The angle and backspin create unusual vertical carry; only Dodgers left-hander Alex Vesia averaged more induced vertical break on a fastball.
Opponents batted .203 against Pivetta’s four-seamer across his eight regular-season starts. He has not worked into the sixth inning this year, but San Diego’s patchwork rotation does not require him to do so. One sharp pass through the order can be enough when the Padres’ bullpen is waiting behind him.
Atlanta has found a different answer in Mahle’s splitter. The Braves acquired him from the Giants at the Trade Deadline, and he turned in a 1.99 ERA over nine regular-season starts after the move. The organizational emphasis was obvious: his splitter usage rose from 25.1% in 18 starts with San Francisco to 38.5% with Atlanta.
Then came Game 2 against the Phillies. Mahle unleashed 55 splitters, surpassing his prior career high of 40 in a game. It marked only the 19th game in the pitch-tracking era, which began in 2008, in which a pitcher threw at least 50 splitters.
The pitch earned its workload. Philadelphia swung 35 times at Mahle’s splitter and missed 13 times, good for a 37% whiff rate. Five of his six strikeouts came on the offering.
Last October featured plenty of splitter-heavy pitching, with Kevin Gausman’s 49 in Game 6 of the World Series setting the high-water mark for that postseason. Mahle has now gone beyond that total, and Atlanta will need the pitch to remain a difference-maker. The Braves’ rotation is thin behind Chris Sale, and a dependable Mahle would give them a real second arm as they try to knock off the Dodgers in the NLDS.
