So, why has 25-year-old Yordano Ventura been so much more effective in August than he was earlier in the season?
Checking Ventura’s pitch data on Brooks Baseball shows that Ventura’s sinker usage jumped from 17.55 percent in July to 29.70 percent in August. That 12% increase came at the expense of a 6% drop in his fourseam fastball usage (35.57% to 29.31%) and his change-up (22.63% to 17.03%).
Comparing Ventura’s August heat map to July shows a big jump in the number of pitches in the strike zone. In particular, he’s decreased the number of pitches in the dirt and increased the number of pitches in the bottom of the strike zone.