Halfway through the season, Pablo López has a 5.11 ERA through 88 innings over 16 starts, sitting top five in the league in most earned runs and most home runs allowed. Even with eight brilliant innings in his last start, he’s allowing runs and home runs at a higher rate than ever before in his career.

This comes after a career year last season where López finished in the top 15 in fWAR, strikeout rate, walks per nine innings and ground ball percentage, good for a seventh place finish in the AL Cy Young Award. López’s performance last season was so impressive that the Twins’ controversial trade of two time batting champion Luis Arráez was vindicated, even after widespread criticism from Minnesota’s own fan base.

So what changed? His pitch shapes have moved slightly, with only the reduction in horizontal movement in his curveball drawing any attention. He’s actually improved the break on his changeup and fastball, and given the consistency in spin rates between this year and last,there’s every reason to believe the tweak in his curveball is intentional to differentiate it from his horizontally breaking sweeper.

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