If you had only seen Brandon Pfaadt pitch last May, you might find it hard to believe how good he looks right now.

-Jesse Friedman

After one year in the majors, Brandon Pfaadt has already taken enormous strides

LOS ANGELES — Last year at this time, Diamondbacks top pitching prospect Brandon Pfaadt had been in the majors for just shy of three weeks. He had made four big-league starts. He had a 7.65 ERA.

His fifth start came on May 26 of 2023, and he gave up eight runs on five hits in 3 2/3 innings against the Boston Red Sox. It was the final straw before he was sent back to Triple-A Reno.

Suffice it to say that version of Pfaadt was quite different from the one that took the mound at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night. In six innings of work, Pfaadt allowed three runs (two earned) against one of the league's most potent offenses, leading the D-backs to a commanding 7-3 win.

It was Pfaadt's fifth consecutive quality start, and his sixth in his past seven outings. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo is starting to get used to it.

"He spoils us," Lovullo said. "He goes out there and just continues to execute and get the job done. It's a low heartbeat. He stands on the mound and just pumps strikes and follows game plans.

"It's been a lot of fun for us to watch."

Pfaadt's outing on Tuesday was not always pretty. He had Dodgers lead-off hitter Mookie Betts down 0-2 in the bottom of the first and walked him four pitches later.

But Pfaadt retired the next three hitters consecutively, a murderer's row that includes Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. He punched out Ohtani and Smith, and got Freeman to hit a slow tapper back to the mound.

"In general, just getting through the first inning for me is key, and we can settle down from there," Pfaadt said after the game.

And so he did. After a 25-pitch first inning, Pfaadt bounced back with an eight-pitch second inning. He ultimately completed six innings on 94 pitches.

Through 10 starts, Pfaadt has averaged exactly six innings per start, a distinction shared by only 17 other qualified starters in baseball. Note some of the big names who are not on that list: Baltimore Orioles ace Corbin Burnes, San Diego Padres ace Dylan Cease and San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb.

Particularly impressive on Tuesday night was Pfaadt's work against Freeman, who went 0-for-3 against him with a groundout, an infield popup and a strikeout.

Freeman worked deep counts in all three at-bats as he often does, but he was unable to square anything up.

Consider Pfaadt's pitch sequence in those battles with Freeman:

Changeup, changeup, four-seam, four-seam, sweeper, sinker
Four-seam, changeup, sweeper, sweeper, sinker, four-seam
Sweeper, four-seam, sweeper, four-seam, sinker, sweeper

Pfaadt started Freeman with a different pitch in each at-bat, and the pitches that followed were seemingly anything but predictable.

"We were [sweeper] heavy again," Pfaadt said. "That was kind of our game plan going in, just showing Freddie different stuff, not just sticking to the scouting report and showing him different things each time through the lineup and keeping him honest. That was the goal tonight, and I think we did that pretty well."

When Pfaadt first arrived in the majors, his arsenal was not as deep. He did not develop the sinker until midway through last season, and his feel for his changeup was less consistent than it is now. More than half of his pitches in his first six big-league starts were four-seam fastballs.

Compare that to Tuesday night in Los Angeles, when he threw 36 percent sweepers, 34 percent four-seamers, 19 percent sinkers, 10 percent changeups and a single curveball. The sweeper is still his signature pitch, but Pfaadt seems to have developed the weapons needed to keep hitters off balance.

At a time when many other D-backs youngsters have struggled, he has only continued to emerge.

"I think just sticking to the process, as cliche as it sounds," Pfaadt said of his growth in the past year. "We had some ups and downs, but taking those downs and learning from them and getting better and trying to just keep building that ladder and trying to get better and better.

"Yeah, you might fail at times, but you can take those. Sometimes, those are the blessing-in-disguise games that help you later on."