DETROIT -- Matthew Boyd has a history of struggles in his final start of a season. He also has a history of using that as a springboard to progress the next year.

When he didn’t retire a batter in his final start of 2016 and didn’t pitch in the final week, he pushed himself to win a rotation spot out of Spring Training and beat out Aníbal Sánchez.

When the Twins homered twice to beat Boyd in the final weekend of the 2017 season, saddling him with five runs over as many innings to bump his ERA to 5.27, he worked to make his slider into a more effective pitch in hopes of putting a full season together.

After three homers over 3 2/3 innings in Minnesota closed out a rough September in 2018, Boyd changed everything from his diet to sleep routine to get in his best shape, while further honing his slider into a swing-and-miss pitch.

So it made sense last month that, even as he wrapped up his best season to date, he wasn’t satisfied after four innings against the White Sox.

“I said at the beginning of the year, it feels like last year was only the beginning,” Boyd said. “Just continue to grow and get better off that.”

He has plenty of growth to look back on, as a pitcher and as a leader. He also has plenty more he wants to do.

What went right?

The work Boyd put into his fitness and his pitching last offseason paid big dividends. His four-seam fastball, which had dropped to an average velocity of 90.5 mph in 2018 according to Statcast, jumped to 92.1 mph this season while gaining 102 rpm on spin rate, making it a legitimate swing-and-miss pitch for him. He paired it with a sharp slider to create a devastating combination for hitters to handle.

Never was that combination more effective than the first two months of the season, when Boyd led AL pitchers in Wins Above Replacement and seemed headed for his first All-Star selection. He delivered quality starts in nine of his first 12 outings, striking out eight or more batters in six of them while picking up wins in five.

Boyd averaged 11.6 strikeouts per nine innings, fourth best among AL starters, while ranking sixth in the league with 238 strikeouts. His walk rate dropped to 2.43 per nine innings, eighth lowest among qualified AL starters. His 185 1/3 innings made him the only Tigers pitcher to cross the 150-inning mark in 2019.

While Boyd found his identify as a pitcher, he also found his voice in the clubhouse. When injuries to Tyson Ross, Matt Moore and Jordan Zimmermann left the Tigers' rotation without a veteran presence, Boyd became a voice of positive reinforcement.

“That's what you take out of this season: We've got a positive leader out there,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He's the guy that goes around and talks with everybody else.”

What went wrong?

Two words: Home runs.

“He'll tell you that he got too many balls up toward the middle part of the plate and they hit them out,” Gardenhire said, “so he gave up too many home runs.”

Boyd’s fastball-slider combination was good enough to comprise more than 85 percent of his pitch selection this past season, according to Statcast. Eventually, hitters caught up with that and sat on his fastball, which sent his home-run rate soaring.

Boyd gave up just seven runs over 72 2/3 innings in his first 12 starts through the end of May. He yielded 29 home runs over 92 1/3 innings over his 16 starts from June through August. Some of that could be attributed to home-run rates soaring across baseball, but there was more to it with Boyd.

“I had two months where my fastball command wasn't the same,” he said. “I wasn't walking people, but I wasn't commanding it like I know I can as I was in the months prior. The last few weeks we started to correct that, understanding how it is and where I need to be going forward.”

Best moment

The Tigers’ hot start to the season became a distant memory by the end of their 114-loss season, but it included some of the best pitching of the year, including from Boyd. On a getaway day at Yankee Stadium, he racked up a career-high 13 strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball, pitching Detroit to a 2-1 win and a 4-3 record on the team’s season-opening road trip.

“Matty had all his stuff going -- his fastball, his slider and everything,” Gardenhire told reporters at the time. “He kept them off-balance. You could see that. … What a great arm. Great stuff.”

2020 outlook

Though trade rumors followed Boyd through the summer as Tigers general manager Al Avila looked to convert his left-hander’s emergence into a prospect package to jump-start the team’s rebuilding effort, Boyd likely isn’t going anywhere this offseason. His second-half numbers diminished his trade value, and left scouts viewing him as more of a mid- to back-end starter for now.

Considering Boyd’s work ethic and career trajectory, however, the Tigers believe he can improve even more and throw the game a changeup -- literally. The change was a big pitch for him early in his career, and it resurfaced in September as catcher Grayson Greiner urged him to throw hitters off his fastball-slider combo.

“That's a massive pitch for him,” Gardenhire said. “It's a great strikeout pitch for him.”

Just as important for Gardenhire is Boyd’s emergence as a leader. With the Tigers awaiting the crop of pitching prospects expected to form the heart of their next rotation, Boyd has a chance to fill the mentoring role that Justin Verlander and Sánchez once filled for him.

“We're going to have a lot of young pitchers in camp,” Gardenhire said, “and not only is he going to get himself better, but he'll help those guys out too, just by how positive he is.”