CLEVELAND, Ohio — Some people hate change. Gavin Williams welcomes it.
This season he tinkered with his delivery. He dropped one pitch, brought it back and added another. He has been open to suggestion even though at times those suggestions have hurt.
At the start of the season, in conversations with Corey Kluber, the Guardians’ pitching consultant, he explained what he did between starts. Part of the two-time Cy Young’s routine was a process called dry needling.
It’s similar to acupuncture where needles are inserted in different parts of the arm and shoulder to treat muscle pain and fatigue. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound Williams was on board with Kluber’s advice but there was a problem — he hates needles.
“I don’t like needles,” said Williams. “I really can’t look at it. I start sweating really, really bad. Even when I walk into the room, I can’t look at the needles. I have to cover my face, or I start sweating really bad.”
Beth Mignano, the Guardians’ soft tissue/manual therapist, inserts the needles in different parts of Williams’ right shoulder.
“There’s about four or five needles in every location of the shoulder,” said Williams. “I’d say there’s between eight and 20 total. It helps out.”
All these changes have helped Williams erase the memories of the 2024 season when he went 3-10 with a 4.66 ERA in 16 starts after starting the year on the injured list with a sore right elbow.
The transformation led the Guardians to name Williams their Game 1 starter against Detroit’s Tarik Skubal (13-6, 2.21) in Tuesday’s AL wild card opener at 1:08 p.m. The best-of-three series will be played at Progressive Field.
Manager Stephen Vogt said Tanner Bibee (12-5, 3.06) and Slade Cecconi (7-7, 4.30) will starts Games 2 and 3 on Wednesday and Thursday. The Tigers did not announce starters for Game 2 and 3.
Williams ended the regular season at 12-5 with a 3.06 ERA in 31 starts. He struck out 173 in 167 2/3 innings, while allowing just 130 hits. He did lead the big leagues with 83 walks.
Tuesday’s start will be the third time Williams faces the Tigers in two weeks. He went five scoreless innings in a 4-0 win over Jack Flaherty on Sept. 17 at Comerica Park. On Sept. 23, he struck out 12 in six innings in a 5-2 win over Skubal at Progressive Field.
“I know what they’ve got, they know what I’ve got,” said Williams. “There are really no advantages or disadvantages. We play them so many times throughout the whole year.”
The Guardians went 8-5 against the Tigers during the regular season to overcome Detroit’s 15 1/2-game lead and win the AL Central title on Sunday, the last day of the regular season.
Williams, 4-0 in his last five starts, is 2-0 with a 1.06 ERA in three starts against Detroit this season.
“Gavin has been incredible,” said Vogt. “From the start of the year to now, he’s just been incredibly fun to watch.”
The significance of the Game 1 start was not lost on Williams.
“I’m kind of star struck, just being able to start a playoff game,” said Williams. “Them trusting me to go Game 1, it’s unbelievable.”
Guardians starting pitcher Gavin Williams, center, talks with pitching coach Carl Willis, left, during a game against game against Baltimore Wednesday, April 16, 2025, at Camden Yards.AP
Williams’ changes started in the offseason. He lost weight and talked and worked with pitching coach Carl Willis on several things, including fine-tuning his delivery. But the main focus was on restoring Williams’ slider.
“His slider wasn’t the slider it had been before,” said Willis. “It had turned into a cutter, but because of his injury we didn’t want to try and adjust things during the (2024) season.
“So, our main focus was to get that slider back once he got back on the mound during the winter. He accomplished that and had a really good spring training.”
Once Williams re-established the slider in the early part of this season, the decision was made to bring back the cutter.
“Gavin felt like that was an easy transition for him,” said Willis. “It was slight grip adjustment and just throw the baseball.”
Williams then added a sinker, giving him five pitches including a four-seam fastball, curve, slider/sweeper, cutter and sinker.
“The cutter and sinker give him three fastball shapes,” said Willis. “He has velocity, but now he has three velocity pitches with different profiles. It just makes the swing path of a hitter a real tough adjustment to make.”
Added Williams, “It opened up the whole zone for me. It opened up the top half, the bottom half, east and west. It’s helped me get deeper into games.”
Along with two new pitches, Williams made some delivery changes with his glove hand to help the shape of his pitches and location. He said it took him about a month to get comfortable with the change.
“It was frustrating at times just wanting to give up on it, but I had the pitching department behind me and having me do different things, different delivery stuff every day, it helped out a lot,” said Williams.
The Guardians drafted Williams with their first-round pick in 2021 out of East Carolina. He looked like a first-round pick is supposed to look and he had the fastball to back it up.
“From day one since he was drafted you saw the power and potential and possibilities,” said Willis. “We talk about the velocity, but that curveball is ridiculous.
“It was just a matter of him learning who he is and having that confidence at a higher level to go out there and do what he does.”
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