Every pitcher who goes through the early years of his major league career on an average to below-average effectiveness path wants to have a story like Kevin Gausman can tell after he beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-0, for the San Francisco Giants Wednesday evening.
In late 2019, Gausman came to the Reds from Atlanta as a pitcher with a below-.500 career record and a career ERA around the 4.50 mark. We typically expect pitchers like that to drift from team to team, showing enough glimmers of effectiveness to keep other teams’ eyes on them. But after a few weeks under the watchful eye of Reds pitching coach Derek Johnson, he finished his Cincinnati portion of the season with 29 strikeouts in 22.