Eric Canha-Imagn Images

Tyler Samaniego isn’t perfect anymore. After throwing 15 scoreless innings over his first 13 big league appearances, the left-hander was taken deep by Kyle Schwarber with a runner aboard in the eighth inning this past Thursday night as the Boston Red Sox fell to the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1. The inevitable imperfection was followed by a double whammy. On Friday, Samaniego surrendered a 10th-inning walk-off two-bagger to Mike Yastrzemski — the only batter he faced — in a 3-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves. Flawless no more, he now has a still-stellar 1.17 ERA and a pair of losses over his first 15 outings.

His initial level of success was somewhat surprising, and the same could be said of the 27-year-old rookie having earned an opportunity to show his mettle in high-leverage situations. He was anything but a proven commodity at season’s start. As for his presence in the Red Sox bullpen, that wasn’t wholly unexpected. When he came to Boston as part of the five-player December deal that shipped “The Password” to the Pirates, Eric Longenhagen wrote that Samaniego was “fairly likely to play a role on Boston’s pitching staff in 2026… occupying a lefty specialist spot.”

Shortly before he suffered his first big league adversity, I approached the 2021 15th-round pick out of the University of South Alabama to learn more about him. I’d perused his stat sheet, seen him pitch a handful of times, and knew that he had undergone an internal brace procedure while in the minors, but that was about it. As such, I began by asking how he has progressed as a pitcher over the years.

“I’m pretty much the same dude,” replied Samaniego, who hails from Huntsville, Alabama. “I’ve just refined the pitches that I already had, and added a couple of new ones to the arsenal. Two years ago, I introduced a four-seam — I used to be just two-seam — and this spring training, I added a cutter.”

Along with the aforementioned offerings, the sinker-heavy (44.6% usage) southpaw throws a sweeper and the occasional changeup. The sweeper was of particular interest to me. Having checked his Statcast numbers, I knew that his newest pitch was averaging less than 12 inches of horizontal movement, yet had been highly effective. Why is that?

“There is nothing crazy with it metrics-wise,” replied Samaniego, who is throwing his sweeper at an 18.6% clip to the tune of a .000 batting average and a .210 xBA. “I think that with my slot and my deception, and the extension factor [at 7.0 feet, it ranks in the 92nd percentile], it just plays well off the sinker. I also think it tunnels well. We go bottom with the sinker, then sweeper, or vice versa. It misses barrels, and that’s really all I’m looking for.”

The modest amount of sweep obviously hasn’t been a problem. Even so, he did once aspire to get more horizontal movement than he currently does.

“I did try to do that early on,” Samaniego recalled. “In your head, sometimes you’re like, ‘I’ve got to make this nasty.’ I kind of tried to make it better than it needs to be. Essentially, I was trying to break it off as soon as I started my arm swing. Learning to finish it late has helped me a lot. It’s really more about how you use it than having a lot of sweep.”

Carlos Narváez shared similar thoughts when asked for his perspective.

“When you mix both fastballs in any count, and throw the sweeper, it’s effective,” the Red Sox catcher told me. “It doesn’t need to be a great pitch in terms of movement. He’s not afraid to throw his pitches in the zone, and he uses everything. Hitters don’t know what to expect. He mixes very well.”

Asked what he considers to be Samaniego’s best pitch, the backstop went with his sinker, another offering that is nothing special in terms of metrics. Pretty much middle of the pack among his contemporaries in terms of horizontal and vertical movement, it was described by Narváez as having “not big movement, but he controls it very well.”

“He also controls his four-seam and his other pitches,” added Narváez. “But again, the biggest thing is that he’s not afraid. He knows that he can do the job at this level.”

Just not every time. No pitcher remains unscathed forever, including Samaniego.