Amid their 14-17 start to the 2026 MLB season that is on pace to not be much better than the six seasons immediately before it, the Washington Nationals and their fanbase will continue to look for reasons to be optimistic. And the good news is that one of the arms they are looking to for the near future provides one.
Jake Irvin, the 29-year-old right-hander currently filling the #2 or #3 role in a disjointed Nationals rotation, has so far wielded the single most unhittable pitch in baseball. Unhittable, as in, it quite literally has not yielded a hit yet.
According to some research by Reddit user u/Petey34, based off of stat tracking data published at Baseball Savant, there have so far between 21 pitches across the whole of the major leagues that have held opponent batting averages under .100, thrown a minimum of 100 times. Irvin, in his six starts on the 2026 MLB season to date, has thrown 105 curveballs. And not one of them has yielded a base hit.
Jake Irvin, Curveball God
Some regression to the mean seems inevitable. After all, in 2025, Irvin’s curveball yielded 53 base hits, for a .269 batting average and a .543 slugging percentage, none of which inspire. The curveball probably did not go from Chuck Knoblauch to Clayton Kershaw quite that quickly. Few would take it over a Mason Miller heater, and possibly not even Jake himself.
Nevertheless, take the affirmation where you can get it. Irvin’s curve has so far paired with his four-seamer (his most used pitch, itself hit at only a .143 clip) to make a strong two-pitch combination that has to a mere 1.18 WHIP in his 29.2 innings so far. Some better luck and the removal of one bad outing against the Los Angeles Dodgers team that sports many a home run threat might yield a more favorable ERA than the 4.80 he currently sports, too. And the curve sure does seem nice.
Much-Needed Nationals Stability
Into his fourth MLB season, having debuted with the Nationals in May 2023, Irvin has established himself as a durable if not frontline starter. In the 2024 season, he logged a 10-14 record with a 4.41 ERA across 187.2 innings, improving his strikeout-to-walk ratio and demonstrating durability with back-to-back high-innings campaigns. His arsenal has been less about overpowering stuff than it is about workload, pitch mix adjustments, and the ability to take the ball every fifth day.
Through the 2025 season and so far into 2026, Irvinâs results have been uneven but substantial in volume. After a difficult 2025 season in which he made 33 starts, going 9-13 with a 5.70 ERA and 124 strikeouts over 180.0 innings, his career totals to date measure out to a 23-37 record, a 4.93 ERA and 413 strikeouts in 518.1 innings.
In 2026, though, the strikeouts are way up. After a K/9 rate of a mere 6.20 last season, Irvin is up to 10.31 in 2026, by far his best career mark. The sample size is small, but the improvement within it is not. Credit to that curveball.
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