What Dean Kremer’s new pitch is called depends on who’s asked.

Kremer hates hearing it called a splitter and said it better resembles a changeup. James McCann doesn’t know what to name it, saying it lands somewhere in the gray area between the two. Orioles assistant pitching coach Mitch Plassmeyer aptly calls it a split-change or “splitter-ish.” Pitch-tracking data chooses split-finger.

There’s little consensus on what to label the new offering. The only thing everyone can agree on is that it’s given Kremer a boost at a critical time.

The right-hander has been one of the club’s best pitchers in recent weeks while throwing the new pitch, which he added last winter, more than ever. Baltimore’s dependence on Kremer will only grow as the Orioles enter the final weeks of the season within reach of a division title while injuries to other pitchers mount.

Armed with a new “whatever you want to call it,” Kremer said, he’s shining through for an injury-filled staff.

“As a hitter, when you got guys like that, you go back after the at-bat saying, ‘Hey, man, that thing fell off the table,’ and the next guy says, ‘Well, mine stayed true like a changeup,’” McCann said. “So, yeah, it’s really hard to classify. For me, it’s a good pitch.”

Kremer threw a more traditional changeup until this season, but the results were subpar. Opponents hit .260 off it last year as he posted a 4.12 ERA. That sent him on a quest for a new putaway pitch, one that had a similar velocity as a changeup to play off his mid-90s four-seamer.

He settled on this splitter. The largest difference between it and his old changeup is the grip, the right-hander said. The velocity and movement are identical — it sits at an average of 84 mph compared with 85 mph last season with 32 inches of vertical drop to 33 inches in 2023, according to Baseball Savant. But this new grip is more comfortable to Kremer, which helps him feel confident throwing it more and in a wider variety of counts, he said.

“I always struggled with a changeup, and that was the next best solution,” Kremer said. “I have the hands for it. I don’t like how everybody’s calling it splitter versus change. A splitter and changeup are the same in my eyes. It’s a change-in-speed pitch to get hitters out in front. So whether it’s a splitter or a changeup, the effect is the same.”

No two splitters are the same. The Orioles are the best example of that.

Félix Bautista’s, which guided the closer to a dominant 2023 season, eclipses 90 mph and drops from the strike zone to the dirt to induce ugly swings and misses. Kremer’s doesn’t have quite the movement. His starts in the middle of the zone, disguised as a four-seamer, before it falls to the bottom at about 10 mph slower than a fastball. That’s why the pitch is so hard to define.

“Having something that looks like a fastball for a lot longer, until it’s not, is really giving him an advantage this year,” said Plassmeyer, who’s in his first season with Baltimore.

It took Kremer until August to feel fully confident in the offering. He threw it just 10% of the time in May. In August, a quarter of his pitches have been splitters. It’s his second most-thrown pitch since the start of July.

This stretch has been one of Kremer’s best of his career. He’s logged three consecutive quality starts for the first time since last August, completed six innings in three straight outings for the first time this season and allowed just five earned runs over his past 18 innings — a 2.50 ERA.

It took constant tinkering for Kremer to get to this point: “The more you toy with it, the more you learn about it, the better feeling you’re gonna have,” he said. McCann was also instrumental.

The veteran catcher knows by now how to learn a new pitch. A catcher’s most challenging job instead becomes helping their battery mate’s confidence as they experiment with the addition when it might not be fully developed yet.

“Pitchers are as much mental as they are physical,” McCann said. “When they’re on the mound and it’s a pitch they don’t fully trust, getting them to throw with conviction can be hard at times, but that’s part of the psychology part as a catcher. When someone is adding a new pitch to their repertoire, and they’ve had success with other things in the past, there can be a little bit of a hesitancy to throw it.”

Kremer has owned the second halves of seasons. His career ERA in the first half of his five major league campaigns is 4.80. That falls to 3.72 from July on. He had a 3.25 mark in the back half of 2023 and owns a 4.19 mark that’s steadily improving this year.

Baltimore’s pitching staff is slated to get healthier by late September, but Kremer’s importance for the group has increased in the meantime. His place in the rotation was uncertain earlier this year when he missed all of June with a triceps strain, which he’s since rebounded and become pivotal for an Orioles team struggling to rekindle their success from a season ago.

The Houston Astros threatened Kremer in the sixth inning of his most recent outing. With a runner on, only one out and three runs already scored, another would have ended the right-hander’s quality start streak. He got to two strikes against Zach Dezenzo after he fouled off a four-seamer down the middle.

This was just what a splitter is for.

Kremer spun one that tunneled through the same path of his fastball then dropped out of the zone. Dezenzo swung and missed — it induces a whiff 34% of the time, the best of all of Kremer’s offerings. And the right-hander escaped the jam.

“Hitters gotta pick and choose. If you get stuck in between, then he’s gonna have a lot of success,” McCann said. “He’s in a good head space. He understands he’s taken some steps forward this year.”