TORONTO (AP) — Mr. Splitty has returned.

Showcased by World Series Game 6 starters Kevin Gausman and Yoshinobu Yamamoto , split-finger fastballs have been used for 6.8% of postseason pitches this year, more than double last year’s 2.4% and up from 1.5% when pitch tracking started in 2008.

“There’s so many good pitches in today’s game — there’s so many good sweepers and sliders and cutters,” Gausman said. “I think the split is almost kind of a just a little bit different of an animal. You can recognize the spin and you can still have a pretty ugly swing on it if the metrics are right.”

Toronto used splitters a big league-high 9.3% of the time during the regular season, according to MLB Statcast. That was the highest percentage of any team since pitch tracking started in 2008, topping

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