CHICAGO — The scouting report for a pitcher facing Colton Cowser is abundantly clear. Entering Tuesday, no hitter in the major leagues faced a higher percentage of off-speed pitches than the Orioles outfielder.

Cowser knows what’s coming. What’s more difficult is hitting it — or, really, laying off those diving changeups to take advantage of in-zone fastballs.

This has been a challenging start to the season for Cowser. This has been a challenging year-plus, actually. Since becoming an American League Rookie of the Year finalist in 2024, Cowser hasn’t shown consistency at the plate. And while the first 11 games of a season are far too few to make declarative statements, the one surety is pitchers are attacking Cowser the same way — and finding success.

“The big thing, at least for me, is committing to the plan,” Cowser said. “It feels like every at-bat I could be in a 3-2 count if I really wanted to. I think sometimes, when I get outside of my plan, that’s when chase ends up happening. You’ll see at-bats when I take the really good ones and swing at them the next at-bat because I’m not really committed to the plan.”

The plan, generally, is to lay off the deceptive pitches that can dive out of the strike zone late in their path to the plate. That’s easier written than done.

For Cowser and just about every other hitter, the approach with fewer than two strikes is to target a part of the zone. If a pitch arrives in that area, a batter then can unload their “A” swing, as they like to call it. In two-strike counts, the target opens and batters must defend the strike zone.

This season, 41.1% of the pitches Cowser has faced have been off-speed — either a changeup or a splitter — which is the highest percentage in baseball, according to Statcast. And since 2024, Cowser’s first full season, the 815 off-speed pitches he has seen as of Tuesday morning are the 23rd-most in baseball.

Pitchers and hitters play games of cat and mouse. Right now, Cowser said, he’s seeing more changeups because he’s not producing against them. “You start hitting them,” Cowser said, and “it’s going to start to shift back the other way.”

But hitting the changeup isn’t the priority. It may matter more to lay off those offerings in order to face in-zone pitches with less late movement.

Cowser’s results in two plate appearances Tuesday won’t be to his liking. He struck out and he grounded out. But in both at-bats, he laid off changeups below the zone (although later in his second at-bat, he chased a low changeup with two strikes and dribbled the ball to the pitcher).

That, at least, was a sign of Cowser following his plan.

“I want Colton Cowser to be Colton Cowser,” manager Craig Albernaz said. When Albernaz describes Cowser at his best, he envisions a version with strong plate discipline.

“He doesn’t have to try to be better than Colton Cowser,” Albernaz said. “It’s a results business, and players hang on results, but when you are chasing those results, that’s when you kind of come out of your plan. For him, his best at-bats are when he’s literally just sticking to his plan and trying to get to first base.

“That’s when good things happen. You work the count. You lay off pitches out of the strike zone, and now you’re in a position to hammer pitches in the strike zone,” Albernaz continued. “I know it sounds very simple, but this game is hard. When Colton does that, that’s the real Colton Cowser, and that’s the impact player he can be.”

In 2024, when Cowser was one of the league’s best rookies, he still struck out at an elevated clip (30.7%) but largely stayed within the strike zone. His chase rate was 25%, which ranked in the 74th percentile.

Last year, Cowser chased outside of the zone at a 23.8% rate, but struck out 35.6% of the time. The dichotomy there is hard to wrap one’s head around, but it mostly comes down to Cowser’s whiff rate of 34.6% last year. And when those off-speed pitches drew swings, even if they were in the zone, Cowser whiffed 45.5% of the time.

Cowser swung and missed against off-speed pitches 42.9% in 2024, but he did more damage against fastballs (.265 average in 2024 compared to a .246 average in 2025), which allowed his overall numbers to flourish. And in 2024, Cowser performed better against breaking balls (.260 average) compared to 2025 (.122). Both varieties of spin — breaking balls and off-speed pitches — are causing Cowser issues early in 2026.

Judging Cowser on his first 26 plate appearances is too small of a sample. But there has been an increase in chase rate early this season (33.3%).

Some of that is due to those off-speed pitches. Of the 30 outside the zone he saw before Tuesday’s game, Cowser swung at 10 of them. He whiffed on five.

“It’s a game of adjustments, and continually trying to find ways to adjust and adapt is key to this game, and I think that’s the key to longevity in this game,” Cowser said.

He’s in the middle of an adjustment period right now.

“It’s challenging,” Cowser said. “You’re not really supposed to hit them. That’s the deal. All I can do right now is just continue the at-bats and hit the ball hard.”

And trust that better days are close ahead.