It’s been three years since Griffin Jax converted into a reliever and quickly became one of the best high leverage arms in all of baseball. After getting past the speculation and idea that he might return to the rotation in 2025, it was the expectation that he would be a two-headed monster with Jhoan Durán at the back of the Twins bullpen. Heck, some might even say that Durán is the “closer” by name but that Jax really is the star of the relief group.

Alas, three weeks into the season and Jax has already coughed up two homers on 12 hits in 7 ⅔ innings. He’s getting rocked and trending toward a major departure from his past numbers. Surely, there has to be a change in his pitch profile that has led to him not only being more hittable but to being hit harder than ever before, right? Not so fast.

Despite the lackluster start to the season, Jax is still striking out 29.7% of batters (about five points less than in 2024) and walking an impressive 2.7% of batters. The velocities of each pitch in his arsenal remain the same from 2024, although he’s featuring his changeup more to lefties and relying less on his fastball which had a Run Value (RV) of nine in 2024. Having thrown just 135 pitches so far this season, it’s probably too early to read too much into his pitch mix, especially when he’s seen nearly a 50/50 split of left handed batters and right-handed batters. If we look into his movement and spin rates, which may be equally as insignificant this early, we’ll see a slight change in his profile. It appears his sweeper, his most oft used pitch, has less sweep but his fastball has slightly more rise to it. The graphic below, broken down by month, shows that his spin rates tend to increase as the season goes on, indicating this is not out of the ordinary for him this early in the season. For reference, despite the lower spin rates, he still carries gaudy strikeout and walk rates with a 2.71 FIP in March and April. Again, it’s too early to take anything meaningful away from the data presented so far but the contour profile of his pitches may be telling indicators explaining his early season struggles.

Remember when I said his sweeper has less sweep? This has resulted in him leaving the pitch over the middle of the plate (dark red blob sitting middle-middle isn’t good), whereas in 2024 the pitch typically was low, away, and out of the zone to right-handed batters. While it hasn’t resulted in additional home runs we’ve seen a significant increase in opponent’s batting average and especially their slugging percentage in the early going. Moreover, Jax has also been missing with his fastball up in the zone. This has resulted in a .429 opponents batting average, a 1.289 slugging percentage, and two home runs against the offering. Last season, he allowed just two home runs off the pitch all year.

So, are we concerned about Jax’s effectiveness? Not yet, but it’s something to keep an eye on in the early going here. It’s a good sign that we aren’t signing diminished velocity or stuff from the 30-year-old, as relievers are the most volatile position group from year-to-year. Right now the problem seems to simply be execution. Especially with such a limited sample, it very well could be that Jax will find his groove and get back to hitting his spots as the year rolls on.

What is your level of concern with Jax’s hittability in the first weeks of the season? Join the conversation in the comments!