Meet the secret weapon behind the Padres having the most unhittable bullpen in baseball

One month into the regular season, and the San Diego Padres have the best bullpen in all of Major League Baseball. Backed by a 1.69 collective ERA and 0.96 WHIP (both tops in the majors), it's no secret that the Friars are lethal once they hand the ball over to a reliever.

It makes sense for Robert Suarez to be the first name mentioned among the best pitchers on the Padres' staff. His perfect 0.00 ERA and 10 saves early on deserves the recognition, but let's take a look at Jason Adam

Adam, although he isn't pitching in the ninth inning, has been equally as dominant as Suarez. In his first full season with San Diego, Adam can find his name in the top percentile of several pitching categories. The 33-year-old is pitching like an All-Star, and there should be no one overlooking his production in 2025.

Padres' Jason Adam is among the best pitchers in plenty of statistical metrics

To get his conventional stats out of the way, Adam boasts a 0.69 ERA in 13 innings entering Saturday. That's one run allowed in 12 appearances, compiling 17 strikeouts and a 0.846 WHIP. Last year, in his 27 outings with the Padres, his WHIP was 0.788, so clearly there is a comfort with him and his pitching coach.

To get a bit further into the weeds of the bottomless statistical world, Adam finds himself in the 90th percentile or better in a ton of categories. Let's take a look.

Adam's changeup-slider combination is rare, especially for a reliever. In this day and age, most guys out of the bullpen are firing fastballs as often as they can, but he's only throwing his fastball 20.1 percent of the time. He opts for his changeup over 36 percent of the time, and his slider almost 29 percent.

It's proving to work for him, and Padres fans are definitely happy with his output so far.