Blue Jays' Jordan Romano having early season-success by deemphasizing the heater

On Tuesday night, Toronto Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano had a typical outing in terms of results.

The right-hander pitched around a single hit in 1.1 innings with two strikeouts and no runs allowed. That's the sort of performance a team expects from a reliable back-of-the-bullpen arm like Romano.

How the 29-year-old went about his night was far from usual, though. Despite wielding a fastball that averages 97.1 mph, Romano threw 14 sliders on 15 pitches. In 166 games at the MLB level it was only the second time he'd used his breaking ball more than 90 percent of the time.

The first was a three-pitch night where he was asked to get a single out.

So, Tuesday was quite the statistical anomaly for Romano. While it's unlikely the closer is going to an all-slider attack, his approach against the Houston Astros is indicative of a larger trend.

So far in 2023 he's throwing his slider more than he has in any other season:

His confidence in the pitch seems strongly correlated with the success he's had with it. Romano is getting hitters to swing and miss at the offering nearly 50 percent of the time — a significant upgrade over his previous career norms:

This is the part of the article where we have to include an obligatory small-sample-size alert as Romano has pitched just 9.1 innings this year. That said, there is reason to believe the quality of the right-hander's slider has improved in 2023 based on its boosted horizontal movement.

Until now, Romano's breaking ball had always had above-average vertical drop, but unimpressive gloveside run. This year it's far more active horizontally, without sacrificing anything vertically:

Watching Romano's slider last season, the thing that stood out was the way the bottom fell out of it.

This year, the way the pitch looks is in line with the movement data as it seems to come across the plate more. This 0-0 pitch to Jeremy Pena from Tuesday night is a good example:

That increased horizontal movement gives it more use cases. For instance, the idea of trying to backdoor left-handed hitters becomes more appealing when you can bring your pitch onto the corner from further off the plate.

Unsurprisingly, this year Romano has consistently aimed for — and hit — the outside corner with his slider when he has a platoon disadvantage.

This 0-1 pitch to Cesar Salazar is a good example of this phenomenon. Although this slider came in at just 86.6 mph, Salazar swung late because he didn't realize it was going to make it all the way to the edge of the plate.

Romano's improved slider hasn't resulted in an obvious boost to his traditional statistics as his ERA (2.89) is higher than it was in both 2021 and 2022. Looking a little deeper, it's clear that it's having an effect, though.

Last season Romano struggled with hard contact despite his success...

... but this year that hasn't been an issue:

The result is an xERA this season (1.84) that's significantly better than what he managed in 2022 (3.31).

His slider usage isn't solely responsible the improved contact management, but it can't hurt to emphasize a pitch that opponents have a significantly lower exit velo against (87.1 mph) than they do versus his fastball (90.4 mph) since the beginning of last season.

Romano is too established at this point to be a breakout candidate, but it will be interesting to see if increased slider usage helps him build on an already impressive baseline. Early in 2023 the pitch itself looks better — and relying on it more is serving the closer well.