SARASOTA, Fla. — In midsummer last year, as Félix Bautista began to throw from 90 to 120 feet during the early stages of his rehabilitation from Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery, his hand fidgeted onto a new grip. He had plenty of time to experiment, and when he noticed the movement of the cutter he hurled from the length of the basepath, Bautista was intrigued.

Months later and entirely apart, Yennier Cano also fumbled around the seams of the baseball and settled on a new grip. Cano had been charged with finding a way to better attack left-handed hitters, and the cutter came into focus as he trained in Tampa, Florida.

The pair of Orioles right-handed relievers are close friends. They share just about everything. But they had no idea they both had decided to toy with a cutter until they arrived in Sarasota this season for spring training.

“He told me about it,” Bautista said. “I was like, ‘That’s really funny. Me too. I’m also throwing it.’”

They’ve employed the offering a handful of times in spring training games, and neither of them truly knows how it might fit into their arsenals or whether it will befuddle hitters the way they hope. The early returns in backfield bullpen sessions have been promising, though, and there’s a cautious optimism growing between Cano and Bautista — and with pitching coach Drew French — that an occasional cutter will keep hitters guessing.

At this point, the arsenals of Bautista and Cano are well known around the league. The duo — nicknamed The Mountain and The Rock — burst onto the scene together with All-Star 2023 seasons for Baltimore. But hitters adapt, so, to stay one step ahead, Cano and Bautista are adapting again, coincidentally together.

“Both of these guys ran with the idea of, how can we be better against lefties? But mainly for Cano. And that’s kind of what he came up with,” French said. “We think it can be really valuable for him. You can’t take too much away from spring at this point, but when the real bullets begin to fly, you’ll begin to have a better understanding of what it is.”

The cutter trend has moved through the clubhouse beyond just Bautista and Cano. Left-hander Cionel Pérez is throwing one now, too, although he told MLB.com he considers it a hard slider.

The pitch could be most impactful for Cano because of the movement profiles of his other pitches. Cano throws a sinker and a changeup that have arm-side dip; his slider has glove-side run. But there’s a hole his pitch shapes don’t cover — and the cutter, with minimal glove-side run, fills it.

Like many relievers, Cano is far better in right-on-right matchups. In his career, righties hold a .614 on-base-plus-slugging percentage against him, while left-handed hitters have posted an .814 OPS.

“With the three-batter minimum, you can’t hide guys anymore,” French said. “He’s going to get a lefty or two every time he goes out there.”

And that’s why Cano adopted the cutter. According to Statcast metrics, Cano threw 32% of his pitches low and away against lefties, with just a combined 8% of his pitches on the inner third of the plate.

“I think it’s a pitch that will help defend me on the inner half, just because my sinker and changeup move away, and I don’t really throw my slider too much against lefties,” Cano said through team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “It’ll just give them a different look.”

Bautista, who hasn’t pitched in a regular-season game since 2023, doesn’t have traditional splits for a right-handed reliever. He’s dominant against batters from both sides, but lefties have especially struggled, producing a .471 OPS against Bautista compared to the .517 OPS for righties.

Bautista is cognizant, though, of his reliance on his sinker and splitter, no matter how good they are. So, as he played catch last summer, his mind wandered to watching right-hander Corbin Burnes for the Orioles. Burnes’ cutter is one of his main weapons, and Bautista wondered if he could include a similar shape in his repertoire.

“Really, with that pitch, all I want to do is change their perception,” Bautista said through Quinones, “and the way that they’re going to see different pitches.”

When French learned Burnes was the impetus for Bautista’s cutter, he laughed. They may both be called cutters, but they’re far different offerings.

“On paper, it’s really unique for Félix,” French said. “It comes from the heavens and it actually is cutting and it has a significant amount of backspin, too. It’s sort of on par with vintage Kenley [Jansen], if you just look at movement in a vacuum. But it’s obviously a different arm slot, a different body, same part of the game usually. Kenley’s primary fastball is that pitch, and Félix has the back-spun 100; that’s the primary fastball.”

Bautista will stick with his high-powered fastball as his primary pitch, although he hasn’t reached that velocity level as he continues his return from surgery this spring.

What they’ve seen from Bautista’s cutter is encouraging, however. Against the Pirates on March 10, one of Bautista’s cutters messed with outfielder Bryan Reynolds’ timing. The slightly slower offering (with more horizontal movement) forced Reynolds, who was expecting a fastball, to foul the pitch off. And on Friday another cutter from Bautista prompted a lefty-hitting Detroit Tigers batter to foul the ball off the cap of the bat.

It’s hard to truly know how the cutter will play, though, when Bautista isn’t fully himself.

“We’ve seen Félix use it to both bat sides. We’ve seen some out-in-front swings,” French said. “But we also know he’s not Félix yet. He’s not back to what the ’23 version was. I think, when all that stuff rounds itself into form, we’ll have a better idea of what it’ll be for him, just inside his identity as a pitcher.”

And, even though Cano is fully healthy heading into opening day, it’s too soon to say how valuable the cutter will become for him.

On top of that, there’s a small risk-averse voice whispering in French’s ear. Bautista and Cano have had great results since their arrival in Baltimore. The cutter could be another strong, albeit infrequent, addition to the mix. But what if they mess with a good thing?

“Arsenals are ecosystems, and when you add something or something moves, typically other stuff tends to change with it,” French said. “That’s the one thing we want to make sure: You have a really good sinker, really good changeup, really good slider. We need to make sure those pitches maintain their spot inside his identity.”

There’s one way to find out, however. So they’ll keep testing the cutter to see how it plays.