Many pitchers tossed strong outings in the fourth week of the MLB season, but which one's were the most notable?

Red Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet kicks off our list after carrying a no-hitter into the 8th inning against his former team, the Chicago White Sox. Ironically, one of the players that was traded for Crochet, Chase Meidroth, was the player to break up the no-hitter. Up until that point, Crochet was turning out one of the best pitching performances of the season. Across seven-and-one-third innings pitched, he only yielded one walk and had struck out 11 White Sox batters. 

It’s very rare to see a starting pitcher dominate without relying on a traditional off-speed pitch. Crochet primarily used his four-seam fastball, cutter, and sinker at 52%, 22% and 17% respectively. Although only throwing his sweeper a total of three times all afternoon, he used the cutter as his off-speed. On the day, Crochet was able to generate a total of 17 swings and misses. He also benefited from 12 balls in play, most of them being from weak contact. 

Reigning American League Cy Young winner and Detroit Tigers southpaw Tarik Skubal had a great start on Monday against the Milwaukee Brewers. The 28-year-old threw seven strong innings, only having one bad inning in which he gave up three of his four hits on the day. Additionally, Skubal kept the ball in the zone, walking no batters and striking out nine. He relied on his changeup, sinker, four-seam fastball and slider throughout the afternoon, as well as getting weak contact, yielding an average exit velocity of just 82.6 miles an hour on the day. 

What was shocking about Skubal’s outing is that he only had a total of 12 called strikes all day, meaning that Skubal was forcing the Brewer’s hitters to make swing decisions. He had a total of 51 swings on the day out of his 91 pitches. The 51 swings are spread out amongst swing and misses, foul balls and balls in play. His changeup generated nine swings and misses alone. Something to keep an eye on is that Skubal had a very low in-zone rate on his changeup at 26%. If hitters can learn to see that changeup out of the zone, it can prove to be troubling for Skubal. 

Sanchez twirled a gem against the San Francisco Giants on Thursday despite giving up three runs in his outing. He was able to give the Phillies a strong outing of seven innings, giving up only four hits. Out of the three runs given up, two came in the first inning. After that, the left-hander settled in, only allowing one hitter to reach base via a walk over the next four innings. 

Sanchez attacked the Giants with a deadly three pitch mix of a changeup, sinker, and slider. He threw his changeup a little more than half of the time (52%), his sinker at 36% and his slider at 12% when he needed to. What stood out most was the whopping 22 swings-and-misses on his changeup, contributing heavily to his 12 strikeouts on the day. Sanchez did give up a couple of barrels on all three of his pitches, all above 100 miles an hour. He has won all four of his starts this season and looks to continue the impressive feat as we head deeper into the season. 

Wheeler is our second Phillies pitcher to show up on this list after he dominated the Marlins on Friday. He went seven innings and struck out 13 while only allowing five hits and two earned runs and walking no batters. He topped out at 97 miles an hour and primarily threw his four-seam fastball at 44%, his splitter at 16%, and his sweeper and sinker at 15% and 14%. On those four pitch types, he was able to generate 19 swings-and-misses, keeping the Marlins hitters off-balance all day. Wheeler was in the zone a lot, with both his four-seamer and his sinker, slightly under 70% total on the day.

Nationals southpaw MacKenzie Gore isn’t a stranger to 13 strikeout outings. He’s achieved that feat twice already this season, including his most recent outing on Saturday against the Colorado Rockies. Gore did fall victim to the Coors Field effect by way of Mickey Moniak going deep in the second inning, but after that, Gore was cruising. He gave up a total of four hits and two walks, but he more than made up for it with the aforementioned 13 punchouts. He was able to keep the Rockies hitters at bay with primarily just his four-seam fastball and his curveball, but using his cutter, changeup and slider when needed. He generated a total of 28 swings and misses on the day with half of those coming with his curveball, which is the second highest total in baseball since the start of last year according to Grant Paulsen of 106.7 The Fan. 

It is worth noting that only 46% of Gore’s pitches found their way into the strike zone; he was able to get 16 called strikes on the day. Gore has above average spin on his breaking ball, which helps him get swings on pitches out of the zone and generate swings in the zone as well. All of these factor into why Gore is the current leader in both strikeouts per nine innings with 13.96 and strikeouts overall with 45. 

Through left-handed pitcher Max Fried’s first four starts as a New York Yankee, the Yankee fan base still carried some uncertainty as to whether he was worth getting paid $27.25 million a year. He put those doubts to rest with his fifth start on Easter Sunday, April 20th against the Tampa Bay Rays. Fried was able to utilize his four-seam fastball, sinker, changeup, curveball, and sweeper to attack the Rays hitters early on. He was able to give the Yankees seven-and-two-thirds scoreless innings while only allowing two walks and striking out two. The big story on Sunday for Fried was the lack of hits by the Rays. He gave up his first confirmed hit in the top of the eighth inning but had lost it earlier after an error by Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt was later ruled a hit. Although Fried doesn’t miss bats like some other pitchers on this list, he certainly benefited from the swing decisions from the Rays. Of Fried’s 64 strikes, 44 of them came from contact, half coming from foul balls and the other half coming from balls in play. This allowed Fried to work deep into the game and allowed the Yankees bullpen to get a much-needed day off. Something to keep an eye on with Fried is that of his 102 pitches is that of his pitches in the zone, he allowed a 98% zone contact rate. While the Rays aren’t the best hitting team in the league, Fried does need to be aware of this moving forward.