The Rockaway Wave
Originally published July 14, 2023
On May 10, Blade Tidwell gave up seven earned runs through just 1.2 innings of work, raising his ERA on the season to 8.35 through his first five starts.
Fast forward two months and his ERA is down to 3.48 on the season, the result of a great nine-start stretch heading into the All-Star break.
“Early on in the year I didn’t establish the fastball, which then in turn led to more walks, and then hitters weren’t sitting fastball and they were able to put my off-speed in play,” Tidwell said. “But now I’ve been establishing my fastball, and by doing so, it makes my off-speed that much better.”
The walks in that first stretch were an issue. Cyclones pitching coach Victor Ramos likened Tidwell to a big-time home run hitter. Usually with guys who can hit 40-plus bombs a year, it comes with a healthy dose of strikeouts.
Tidwell is the pitcher version of that. His stuff is so good that he can strike out a dozen on any given night, but it’s going to come with some walks. The goal, Ramos said, is to turn the five or six walks a game into just one or two.
Ramos said that about Tidwell a couple of days after his sixth start of the season, which was a nice bounce-back of five innings of two-run ball (no earned) a week following the aforementioned seven run blow up. It was a good outing, and one that kickstarted his turnaround, but still had its issues.
Yes, he went five innings without giving up an earned run while striking out eight, but he still walked five batters. That would be the story for the following four starts as well — not a lot of runs, a good amount of strikeouts and at least three walks, usually more. In Tidwell’s five starts following the May 10 game, he threw 20.1 innings with a 1.77 ERA, striking out 33 while walking 20.
Then, in his final four starts before the break, he turned a real corner. Not only was Tidwell consistently going deeper into games than he had all season, but he was doing exactly what Ramos said the goal was — cutting the walks down to one or two a game.
“He’s sticking to his gameplan,” Cyclones manager Chris Newell said. “It’s hard, especially early in the year, he’s a warm weather climate guy coming up to real tough weather. I don’t believe in making excuses, I believe in making adjustments, and he is the epitome of making the necessary adjustments. It’s a process, and some guys figure it out a little bit sooner than others.
And I will say, as long as you figure it out, that’s all that matters, but he has definitely figured it out a heck of a lot sooner than most.”
In his four most recent starts, Tidwell threw 26.0 innings with a 1.38 ERA, striking out 37 and walking just five. The walks have been an absolute game-changer, and Tidwell knows it.
“It’s a huge advantage,” Tidwell said. “Usually when I walk someone they go ahead and score, so it’s nice to not have anybody on base to pitch out of the windup.”
In his first 10 starts of the season, Tidwell averaged under four innings a start and never went longer than 5.1. He walked at least three batters nine times, and the only time he didn’t was when he pitched just two innings.
In his last four, not only has he gone at least six full innings each time, but he hasn’t walked more than two batters in any game. As for the strikeout numbers, they’ve reached a new level recently.
He always pilled up the strikeouts, even when he was struggling, but he set a season-high with 11 in seven innings on June 30 — and then did it again six days later, only this time in six innings.
“I’ll put it this way, I’m getting to the point where when he throws the heck out of it, I’m not surprised,” Newell said. “I start to get surprised when he’s not, because he’s just that reliable guy day in and day out.”
On the season, Tidwell has the 11th-most strikeouts in all of minor league baseball, and the fewest innings of anyone in the top 40. Among qualified pitchers in at least Low-A or higher, his K/9 of 13.5 ranks third, and a clear first in just High-A.
Newell called his stuff electric, and Cyclones hitting coach Richie Benes said he was glad he’s on their team because his stuff is so hard to hit.
At about the halfway point of the season, Tidwell’s 2023 so far can really be split up into thirds. In his first five starts, he really struggled. In the middle five, he still walked a lot of hitters but was often times able to overcome it. In the final four, he put it all together and absolutely dominated.
The 52nd overall pick by the Mets in the 2022 MLB Draft, Tidwell is the highest-ranked pitching prospect in the Mets system on MLB Pipeline — and it’s easy to see why.
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