Kevin Gausman is seemingly turning a corner when the Toronto Blue Jays need him the most.

After being swept by the Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend, the franchise needed its best starting pitcher to give them a chance to return to the win column during Monday’s series opener in Texas, and that’s exactly what Gausman did against a struggling Rangers lineup, tossing eight innings of one-run ball as part of a badly needed 2-1 victory.

It was the second dominant outing in a row from the 34-year-old righty, who’s now allowed just one run — a solo shot from sophomore outfielder Wyatt Langford on Monday — in 15 combined innings over his previous two starts. In that span, he’s punched out nearly a third of his batters faced, racking up 15 strikeouts and walking zero.

Granted, it’s a tiny sample size consisting of just two starts, the most recent of which came against one of the worst offences in baseball. The other, meanwhile, featured a matchup versus Padres stars such as Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill. 

Still, there’s no denying this has been the best stretch of Gausman’s season across the first two months of the 2025 campaign. In fact, this might be the closest he’s gotten to resembling his peak 2021-23 self in two years.

Let’s put that into context here.

Not only has Gausman dominated the Padres and Rangers over his last two starts, but he’d been building up to this type of resurgence during his earlier outings in May. Following Monday’s eight-inning performance, the two-time All-Star has now made five starts this month, pitching to a sparkling 2.81 ERA and 2.73 FIP with 33 strikeouts and only one walk.

That last part is particularly noteworthy, as Gausman is one of just two qualified major league starters to complete at least 30 innings pitched and issue one walk or fewer in May — with Seattle’s Bryan Woo being the other.

Gausman has also seen a considerable uptick in swing and miss this month, posting a 28.5-per-cent whiff rate across this five-start span, which is higher than any month-by-month percentage he registered last season. The last time he recorded a whiff rate this high was September ’23 (32.9 per cent).

We haven’t reached the point where peak Kevin Gausman — who ranked first in FIP (2.79) and finished tied for second in fWAR (15.5) and fourth in strikeout-to-walk rate difference (23.7 per cent) among qualified big-league starters (min. 300 innings) from 2021-23 — is all the way back. At least not yet. We’ll need a larger sample size and a continued increase in swing-and-miss before declaring that. However, many encouraging signs are currently pointing in that direction, particularly with his infamous splitter.

The return of Gausman’s elite-level swing-and-miss offering has been at the heart of his recent dominance, which, if you’ve been following his career since he arrived in Toronto in 2022, shouldn’t be all that surprising. That’s his bread and butter.

When Gausman is at his best, so too is his splitter. But for most of last season and much of ’25, that wasn’t the case — hence the reason why he hasn’t come close to replicating his career-high 31.1-per-cent strikeout rate from his sensational ’23 performance, where he placed third in AL Cy Young voting.

Lately, however, the veteran right-hander’s off-speed weapon has looked more like it did a few years ago — both in terms of results and pitch makeup.

The results, of course, have stood out the most thus far, considering Gausman’s splitter has induced double-digit whiffs in consecutive games. That’s something he failed to accomplish over his first nine starts of ’25, recording nine or fewer per outing in that span, and only achieved four times in 31 starts a season ago.

Two years ago, Gausman produced a career-high 20 whiffs via his splitter on Apr. 29 versus the Mariners. But he hasn’t totalled more than 13 in any start since then, which also matches his season-high in ’25. His chances of exceeding that figure have never been higher than now, though, especially based on the recent adjustments made to that pitch.

Most traditional splitters fare better when they’re breaking downwards rather than side-to-side. If you ask Gausman or Chris Bassitt, they’d surely tell you the same. However, since the beginning of last season, Gausman’s splitter had been stuck in a troubling trend, trading some of its vertical movement for horizontal — until recently, that is.

The Blue Jays’ ace has tweaked the grip of his splitter in an effort to course correct, allowing his primary swing-and-miss offering to get back to what it does best: carry the strike zone effectively before dropping off the table. And that’s resulted in a dramatic decrease in horizontal movement over his last four starts (higher chart points = good).

In turn, there’s been a significant increase in vertical movement on Gausman’s splitter in that same span, culminating in a season-best average of 37 inches in Monday’s start versus Texas (lower chart points = good).

It’s no coincidence that Gausman’s splitter also produced its lowest average spin rate (1,703 RPMs) of the season during that same outing against the Rangers. And if we chart back across his last four starts, we’ll see that it has gradually declined compared to the opening month of the campaign.

While it may seem counterintuitive, especially in an era focused on maximizing spin rates, the fewer revolutions a splitter has, the more it’s typically able to break downward — an encouraging sign regarding Gausman’s recent sample size.

Gausman has also been throwing his splitter much slower as of late, matching his season-low of 84.4 m.p.h. his last time out. Combined with its reduced spin rate, that has provided additional time for it to break vertically before crossing home plate while creating increased separation from his mid-to-high 90s fastball.

By glancing at the table below, you can see how similar his splitter’s pitch-shape metrics from the previous four starts are to his peak 2021-23 seasons. At the same time, we can also better compare where he was a season ago with his off-speed offering.

This is the version of Kevin Gausman that Toronto’s starting rotation is counting on. When his splitter is performing like this, it makes him an uncomfortable matchup for opposing hitters with his one-two punch combination (heater up, soft low), freely operating as a north-south pitcher.

It’s fair to acknowledge the book has long been out on Gausman. Everyone knows what his game plan is, which is why he’s had to adjust by attacking the bottom third of the strike zone with four-seamers to keep the opposition on its toes. Still, that isn’t a foolproof plan, as we witnessed in years past. There will be teams who’ll act aggressively to avoid entering two-strike counts, just as Rangers hitters did on Monday.

That may limit how high Gausman’s recent resurgence can soar. And it could also mean his double-digit strikeout performances — which he only had four of in ’24 and has one of this season — will remain sporadic. Even so, this version that we’re witnessing can still be a dependable front-line starting pitcher for the Blue Jays’ staff.

For a team that’s asked a lot of its pitchers thus far, needing to help keep them in games due to the offence’s inconsistent scoring, it makes Gausman’s impressive stretch even more crucial moving forward, especially if he can continue to take pressure off an overworked bullpen by pitching deep into games.

Looking ahead to his next start, it’ll be fascinating to see if he can continue these recent trends against an Athletics lineup that — while featuring slugger Brent Rooker along with promising young hitters like Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler — is tied for the fourth-highest whiff rate (35.2) against off-speed pitches (changeups, splitters) this season.