'It just disappears': Suarez thriving with new pitch

OAKLAND -- If it had been up to José Suarez, his night may have ended a bit prematurely. But interim manager Phil Nevin didn't wind up taking the ball from his young left-hander, and his faith was rewarded.

Suarez had already cruised through 6 2/3 innings of scoreless ball when he allowed his fourth baserunner of the game with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning. So Nevin came in for a chat, and the 24-year-old held out the ball.

"I won't tell you exactly what I said," Nevin said. "But he smiled, and he locked it right back in. And you could see his determination in [facing] that last hitter."

Suarez then struck out A's designated hitter Stephen Piscotty to end the seventh, putting a stamp on a dominant outing that sealed the Angels' series-opening 1-0 win at the Coliseum on Monday night. It was the 13th shutout win of the season for the Angels, the third-most in baseball behind only the Mets and Yankees, who each have 14.

The A's may have experienced some déjà vu, as they last saw Suarez six days ago in Anaheim. The young lefty was sharp then too, allowing an unearned run over five innings of work. But he took it to another level on Monday night.

“We had trouble with him in Anaheim," A's manager Mark Kotsay said. "Again, he kept us off-balance. He has a very good slider that we didn’t seem to pick up very well tonight.”

Suarez's seven innings of work were a season high, second only to the nine innings he tossed in his sole complete game in the Majors last September. His punchout of Piscotty gave him eight strikeouts on the night, which also tied a career high.

Half of Suarez's strikeouts came on his changeup. But … which changeup?

That's not usually a question that needs to be asked, but Suarez recently added a new changeup to his repertoire. And so far, it seems to be getting the job done: In three starts since introducing the new pitch, he has not allowed an earned run in 17 1/3 innings.

Suarez started working on his new changeup earlier this year at the suggestion of Angels pitching coach Matt Wise, who helped Suarez figure out a grip that allows the new changeup to move differently than the old one.

"It helps me a lot because they have two different movements," Suarez said via interpreter Manny Del Campo. "My old one is more like a fastball, and this one has more movement."

Added Nevin: "You can throw one for strikes, and the other one's kind of more of a chase pitch. Good hitters taking the swings that they are off of it -- it's pretty impressive."

Statcast doesn't differentiate between Suarez's two changeups, but there is reason to believe that the new pitch is elevating the old one. Consider the difference between expected stats on Suarez's changeup before and after the All-Star break entering Monday night's game:

Pre-All-Star break:

.233 xBA, .429 xSLG (219 pitches)

Post-All-Star break:

.206 xBA, .302 xSLG (43 pitches)

Of course, the second-half stats come in a significantly smaller sample size than in the first. But the numbers still show that the quality of contact against Suarez's changeups has dropped since he's started throwing both of them, and his second-half changeup stat line is remarkably similar to the numbers on his changeup in 2021 (.205 xBA, .302 xSLG, 466 pitches).

Suarez's new changeup has the potential to elevate his entire arsenal. When his fastball is at its best and his slider is right, Suarez's dual changeups add another layer of deception.

"[The new changeup] just dies," Nevin said. "From the side, I can't tell if it's a slider or a change, I've got to look at the board. But when he's throwing it the way he is, it's got a lot of dive to it. It comes out like a fastball -- his arm action's really, really good, same as his fastball -- and it just disappears."

Suarez's performance on Monday was another step forward, as the lefty looks to return to the form he reached in his breakout 2021 season. He's had mixed success so far in 2022, but he's been on a roll lately, winning three straight decisions for the first time in his career.

So perhaps the next time Nevin walks over for a mound meeting late in the game, Suarez won't hold the ball out for him to take.

After all, when asked how much confidence he's been pitching with lately, Suarez just smiled and gave a brief answer to Del Campo.

"With 100% confidence," he said.