Crafty and Diverse, Dane Dunning Plays the Cards He’s Been Dealt

Dane Dunning is excelling in Texas. Now in his third season with the Texas Rangers after debuting with the Chicago White Sox in 2020, the 28-year-old right-hander is 8–2 with a 2.84 ERA over 92 innings. And though he’s fanned just 59 batters, that suits him just fine. It’s not that he doesn’t like strikeouts; he very much does. It’s just that he lacks the power profile of your prototypical modern-day ace. Epitomizing the term “crafty righty,” he effectively limits damage by mixing and matching with one of baseball’s most expansive repertoires.

Dunning discussed his atypical approach, and the arsenal that goes along with it, when the Rangers visited Fenway Park prior to the All-Star break.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with your repertoire. How many pitches do you throw?

Dane Dunning: “Sinker, four-seam, cutter, changeup, slider, curveball. So six. I guess you could say that I’m a jack of all trades, master of none.”

Laurila: How long have you had such a diverse repertoire?

Dunning: “Well, the four-seam is kind of new this year. I’ve thrown it on certain occasions, probably in my last four, five outings. The cutter I started focusing on last year, and this year it’s kind of come into its own. The sinker and slider I’ve had my entire life. The curveball has kind of been my entire life. I’ve always thrown a curveball, but it’s been like, ‘Let’s throw the curveball, let’s not throw the curveball.’ It’s sort of gone back and forth. I brought it back this season, because last year I was throwing two different sliders and they kept blending together. I had to get rid of that.”

Laurila: Can you elaborate on two different sliders?

Dunning: “So last year I threw like a sweeper, kind of what everyone started throwing, and then my normal slider. The problem was that at times I’d be trying to throw a normal slider and would throw the sweeper. Other times I’d try to throw a sweeper and it would be the normal slider. What I wanted was to have two distinct pitches. I wanted to have the slower one with a little bit bigger break, as well as my regular slider.

“One of the biggest things I worked on this year with the slider was trying to get more gyro and have it be a little bit harder. I felt like last year, because they blended together, it got a little humpy, a little bit curveball-y. So I brought back the curveball from, I guess, two years ago. It’s a comfortable pitch. It’s not an out-pitch or anything like that, but it’s definitely something that I can use in get-ahead accounts and against certain hitters in certain situations.”

Laurila: Basically, you shelved the sweeper.

Dunning: “Yes.”

Laurila: You used the word blend. Based on what you described, it seems like unpredictable might be a better word for it.

Dunning: “Yeah. I would have games where I was able to throw both and have good results from both, but there were also a lot of games where I didn’t. That’s why I’m throwing the curveball again. I wanted to create two distinct entities, and the curveball is slower with a bigger break, whereas the slider is sharper and harder. The slider has always been kind of my put-out pitch, so more than anything I was just trying to get back to my normal slider. That was probably the biggest goal.”

Laurila: How different are the movement profiles on your slider and your cutter?

Dunning: “When it comes to break, the biggest difference is that the cutter has a lot more vert. I’ve tried to average 10-plus vert on the cutter and then, whatever cut I do get on it, cut-ride… I mean, even if it doesn’t get as much as I’d like, it’s effective as long as I keep it up. That’s because it has so much separation from my sinker; it’s moving in a different direction. And the slider is more of a traditional slider, with just a little bit of depth action to it.”

Laurila: You’re somewhat of an outlier in that you rely on six pitches. A lot of your contemporaries are prioritizing their best two pitches, and maybe a third.

Dunning: “I don’t belong in that group, because most guys nowadays are throwing 97 [mph]. If you look at… Framber Valdez is a great example. He’s got a really good four-seam, a really good curveball, and a really good changeup. He does have a slider that he uses in certain situations, but for the most part, his put-out-pitch is his curveball. When you have pitchers that are dominant… like Chris Sale here [in Boston]. He’s always been known for his slider, and he’s going to throw his slider.

“For me, it’s different. I don’t have the velo, I’m 90–91, so I’ve got to locate more. I’ve got to mix more. It’s about utilizing all of my pitches as much as I can. I need to spread the zone out as much as possible with pitches going in different directions. I would love to be an overpowering pitcher, but I’m not. I need to use what I’m able to do as my advantage.”

Laurila: Which pitchers in the league would you bucket yourself with?

Dunning: “One of the people I learned a lot from last year was Martín Pérez. He obviously had a fantastic year, but it was his style of pitching, his being able to go backdoor cut, front-door sink, expand the zone. He used a lot of movements from side-to-side, up-to-down. Kyle Gibson is another one. Four-seams up, sinkers down, cutters up and away to a righty, front hip to a lefty. Again, it’s utilizing all of my pitches in certain scenarios. Sequencing is the biggest thing.”

Laurila: Is your game-to-game mix dictated more by scouting reports, or more by the feel you have for your pitches on a given day?

Dunning: “We have a plan going into each game, but for certain hitters… yesterday, for example. [Jarren] Duran had really good at-bats. I thought I pitched him decently well, but he was able to tag on some extra-base hits against me. First at-bat, I tried to go slider back-foot, and while I did leave it a little bit in the zone, it was still a quality pitch in the zone, He ended up hammering it for a triple.

“It took me two at-bats to figure it out. We tried different things. We had a scouting report going in, [and] first at-bat we went with the scouting report, but he put some really good swings on the ball. So you have to adjust with how the game goes. And if something’s not working, say I’m not landing my slider, then I might not be throwing my slider as much as ideally I want to. I’d have to figure out another way to get people out.”

Laurila: Do you care about strikeouts?

Dunning: “I mean, what pitcher doesn’t? I obviously like strikeouts, but I also know who I am. I wouldn’t say that I don’t try to get strikeouts. If you watch a lot of my games, you’ll see me throw quality pitches and get strikeouts. I’ll also get jam-shots. Against the Yankees, I had a check-swing ground ball to first base against [Giancarlo] Stanton on a pitch that would have bounced. Things like that.

“But no. I mean, I’m a sinkerballer. I try to work quick and get quick outs. I try to miss barrels and get the ball on the ground as much as possible, because I have a talented defense behind me. So yeah, I’d like to get more strikeouts, but for the most part I kind of just play with the cards that are dealt.”