Clayton Kershaw is changing his pitch mix, believing the high number of home runs off him was due to being too predictable:

As he huddled with pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, Kershaw focused on the predictability of his patterns to attack hitters. He described himself as being “more open-minded” to suggestion and undergoing a “little bit of a mind-set shift, for me, just rethinking a few things.” The differences were slight. Kershaw sharpened the command of his curveball and slider, and increased their usage. He also varied the deployment of his fastball.

In his first 15 starts, Kershaw leaned on his fastball 49.2% of the time, according to Pitch f/x data from Brooks Baseball. In his next four outings, Kershaw reduced his fastball usage to 43.2%. He filled the void with offspeed pitches, and showed a willingness to break out his curveball earlier in games.

“It’s no secret that I want to throw fastballs and get ahead, and work from there,” Kershaw said. “And it’s no secret that guys are swinging early. Sometimes you have to deviate from that. And it might take a few homers to realize that.”

This really isn’t something new. If you look at this career, Kershaw has been de-emphasizing his fastball for a long time. What he is probably changing more is when he uses pitches in the count.