Another Kikuchi dud
On Kikuchi's walks, Trevor Richards, Gabriel Moreno, Matt Chapman, comeback woes, Nate Pearson, trade talk, prospects, Danny Jansen, Anthony Alford, two podcast appearances from me, and more!
Top prospect Gabriel Moreno had an outstanding third game in the majors, and Matt Chapman returned to the Jays’ lineup looking no worse for wear, but another dud from starter Yusei Kikuchi, and more problems from reliever Trevor Richards, doomed the Jays in this one, despite their five-run effort. Ugh.
So let’s talk about it! Here’s three down…
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Down: Kikuchi and Richards
Normally I'd use this space to try to analyze the starting pitcher's night, but I honestly am not sure that there's much to say beyond Charlie Montoyo's typically succinct take on it.
“He needs to throw strikes," Montoyo told reporters, including MLB.com's Keegan Matheson, after the game. "It’s kind of tough to play from behind somebody. There’s too many non-competitive pitches. Believe me, having said that, there’s always hope, because he has good stuff. But at the end of the day, if you keep walking people, it’s going to be tough.”
Kikuchi walked four batters in four-plus innings, allowing four runs on five hits while striking out four. He's now averaging fewer than 4 1/3 innings per start, largely because all the walks he's issuing are eating into his pitch counts. Kikuchi's 5.68 BB/9 is the worst in baseball among 125 pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched. His 32 walks are third-worst among that group.
Can we maybe expect bumps in the road like this for a guy who didn’t join the organization until March 12, yet has been asked to make major changes to his pitch mix (amping up the use of his fastball), repertoire (combining his slider and cutter into a single pitch), and his mechanics (getting him to ditch the hitch in his delivery)? I think absolutely. But that doesn’t mean that Kikuchi and Pete Walker, Matt Buschmann, et al., don’t have to get this sorted out quickly — especially with Tuesday’s Hyun Jin Ryu news meaning that the team is short of starting pitching depth.
Amazingly, though his last two starts have been awful, Kikuchi's ERA sits only at 4.80 for the season, and was at 3.91 heading into his start a week ago. As we can see from the following pre-game chart from Props.cash — player prop research made easy! — this isn't a disaster on the level of the end of last season for Kikuchi, at least in terms of earned runs.
It’s really the walks that have been the issue, and as I noted after his previous disaster, this is very much a new phenomenon for him. Kikuchi’s walk rate in 2021 was 9.3% — below league average (8.7%), but not by a whole lot. Even in his disastrous second half he only walked 10.7% of the batters he faced. And with his ability to get strikeouts, his K-BB% of 15.2% was firmly above average (14.5%) on the year.
This season Kikuchi has walked 14.1% of the batters he’s faced, and has a K-BB% of just 10.6%. Not great!
Also not great? Trevor fucking Richards!
I actually think the Jays are doing a somewhat decent job at putting him into spots where the potential damage he can do is minimized while not just completely burying him — asking him to go more than one inning in relief of Kikuchi's latest duds, for example. Unfortunately, those are closer games than he deserves to be pitching in right now. And the more we see of him lately, the more if feels like burying him would be the better option.
On the season Richards’ 1.95 HR/9 rate, and his 4.88 BB/9 rate both rank in the bottom 20 of 189 relievers with at least 18 innings thrown. Since May 31st he's allowed nine earned runs in seven innings, giving up 11 hits and five walks. He's given up multiple earned runs in four of his last seven outings. Most damning of all, he has reached the point where it feels like Trent Thornton is the more reliable option for the Jays to give the ball to. Think about that!
This awful run hasn't exactly come against the best offensive teams in the world, either. Since May 31 he's faced the banged up White Sox and Twins, then the Royals, Tigers, and now the Orioles.
The fact that Richards is out of options complicates the decision the Jays have to make here, as does the fact that Julian Merryweather was just lost to another injury. In all likelihood, if they attempt to send Richards down he'll get claimed on waivers and probably end up working out just fine somewhere else. I can appreciate that! It's just... could we maybe find a way to make his garbage time appearances a little garbage-ier? At least until he shows he can go more than a handful of outings before getting lit up???
Down: Spoiling Moreno’s breakout and Chapman’s return
I really thought that Matt Chapman had tied the game in the eighth inning with that 415 foot fly ball that came off the bat at 107.2 mph — and apparently with good reason, too.
Man, that would have been sweet. But it was at least a great sign — in addition to his earlier blast — that Chapman is feeling no ill effects of the wrist injury that kept him on the shelf for a few days.
The near miss did, at least, setup yet another bit of magic from rookie Gabriel Moreno, who hit after Chapman, and cashed Santiago Espinal with his third single of the night.
At just three games deep, Moreno’s MLB career is too young to get hung up on the numbers — though he is 4-for-11 with a walk, a run scored, a pair of RBIs, and just one strikeout — but we can certainly already see signs of why the Jays, and the scouting community, are so excited by this guy.
The lack of strikeouts is impressive, but we could really see his bat-to-ball skills at work on that eighth inning RBI single. Moreno reached down for a slider well below the zone and managed to shoot it into right field.
Even more impressive may just be Moreno’s arm, which is something I think opposing runners won’t be testing all that often now that they’re starting to figure out just how elite it is. He made a great throw in his big league debut back on Saturday in Detroit, and may have outdone himself in this one, beautifully nabbing Jorge Mateo for the second out of the second inning.
The speedy Mateo would steal a bag later in the game, thanks to a poor throw from Moreno, but even with that blemish he’s got all the makings of an elite catcher in terms of controlling the running game. For Buffalo this season, Moreno threw out 15 of 28 would-be base stealers. And while minor leaguers thieves are obviously not nearly as good, or as experienced at their craft, as guys in the majors, it's notable that the highest active caught stealing percentage among big league catchers belongs to the Cardinals' Yadier Molina at 40.3%.
Moreno does this by having an elite "pop time," which is a measure of how quickly the ball goes from the catchers glove to the fielder's glove when making a "max effort" throw to either second or third base. We can very clearly see this on the just-released pop time leaderboards at Baseball Savant (provided we turn the minimum number of attempts for consideration down to just one).
J.T. Realmuto has been the MLB leader in this category in every year since 2018, so being even this close to him makes Moreno elite. And there may be even more in Moreno's arm than the 81.3 mph average on his throws shown here. Jays coach John Schneider recently told Mitch Bannon of SI that Moreno has had pop times down below 1.8 seconds, though is generally in the sub-1.9 range. He adds: "It’s like an infielder’s transfer with an outfielder’s arm strength, that’s kind of the combo. Usually it’s kind of one or the other—arm strength or exchange—but he has both.”
He’s going to be a fun one! And a hard one to send down once Danny Jansen gets healthy. Unfortunately for all of us, this breakout performance didn’t end in a win. Woof.
Down: No ninth inning magic
You can hardly fault a team for failing to score in any one inning, no matter how good the matchup may look. And in this one the matchup didn't even look all that great! The Orioles, somewhat surprisingly, have found some legitimately successful relievers and were able to throw four of them in a row at the Blue Jays after starter Jordan Lyles predictably got tagged for a bunch of runs on Tuesday night.
Félix Bautista, Dillon Tate, Cionel Perez, and Jorge Lopez have allowed just 17 runs between them this season in 107 innings of work (1.43 ERA). And Lopez, who recorded the final five outs of this one, may be the best of the bunch — particularly against a right-handed heavy lineup like the one the Jays employ.
Of 252 pitchers with at least 15 innings versus right-handed batters this season, Lopez ranks sixth by wOBA against at .174. To give you a sense of the scale of the task ahead of the Jays in the ninth, slightly ahead of Lopez, ranking third with a .164 mark, is Alek Manoah.
Still, we're talking about a ninth inning of Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Teoscar Hernández coming up. Even if we know it's stupid to expect more here than we would in any other situation, and somehow even dumber to worry about “trends” when we’re talking about impossibly small sample sizes, it sure does suck to watch the Jays yet again come up limp in a spot where they could really have done something special. The 2021 Blue Jays would never!
Or… actually, I’m pretty sure the 2021 Blue Jays did stuff like this all the time before returning to Toronto in late July (and then started to do it again during their August funk after Springer’s injury in Seattle). But still! Give us a comeback for once!
Jays Twitter legend @james_in_to pointed out after last night’s loss that the team is now 0-for-18 in the ninth inning this year when trailing by a run. That ineptitude includes seven strikeouts, six grounders, three fly balls, and a pair of pop outs. Many of those at-bats were taken by guys like Raimel Tapia, and pre-breakout Alejandro Kirk, but still. Not pretty!
Other notes
• Nate Pearson allowed a home run to former number one overall pick Mickey Moniak on Tuesday in Lehigh Valley, but otherwise pitched well over two innings, allowing just one other hit and no walks, while striking out four. He's now up to just six innings pitched for the Buffalo Bisons so far, so I don't know that he'll be pressed into big league action any time soon, but it's good to see him looking as decent as he has. He's allowed just three hits total in those six innings, though two of them have been home runs. He's walked only two and struck out nine.
• Pearson's name is, of course, on the minds of a lot of Jays fans this week because of Tuesday's Hyun Jin Ryu news. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet wrote about Pearson, Ryu, and how the Jays address their sudden lack of rotation depth in a piece on Tuesday, noting that when asked whether the Ryu news might alter the plans for how Pearson is being built up, GM Ross Atkins simply answered, "not really."
“But that is a very real option, maybe more on the creative route,” he added. As in, maybe not exactly as a traditional starter.
This doesn't seem like an unreasonable position to take. Having Pearson operate as a multi-inning reliever probably best utilizes his electric arm, allowing him to throw at max effort or close to it. It also puts him on a shorter leash, which may be necessary given how sideways so many of his big league appearances have gone to date. It gives him an opportunity to come away from games feeling good about his performances more often, and to get back on the hill more quickly after any bad ones, rather than having to wait four or five days. And it does this while still allowing him to get back some of the innings he's lost this season, and potentially putting him in the mix to grow into a starting role eventually, provided things go well and a need arises.
Counting on Nate Pearson for anything more at this stage, unfortunately, seems like a really bad approach.
• So what do the Jays do, now that they're one injury away from needing to turn to Thomas Hatch (5.05 ERA in Buffalo), Casey Lawrence (34-year-old Quad-A type), or Max Castillo (interesting, though most scouting reports see him as a reliever, and he's not even in MLB Pipeline's top 30 for the Jays!) to fill a rotation spot? Try to make a trade, I suppose.
No, not for Shohei Ohtani (though I would give up just about anything the Angels wanted to get him in a Blue Jays uniform that wasn’t already on the big league roster — and, frankly, some players who already are). And, honestly, I’m not sure the answer is a blockbuster of another kind, either.
I’ve seen a lot of “call the A’s” on this one so far, or the Reds, or the Rangers, but I’m not sure if I see the Jays going that route, honestly. I’d be thrilled to be wrong, but with the expanded playoffs there are going to be fewer sellers and higher prices on the starting pitching market, plus I think the Jays can already feel pretty comfortable about the likelihood that they’ll be a playoff team come October. And as long as they get in, anything can happen.
That’s not to say that they won’t add depth. I think they will. They have to. But I’m expecting something more like those 2020 deals for a struggling Robbie Ray and Taijuan Walker — guys who the Jays had identified things they could help them fix, and who came at minimal cost.
• Interesting tidbit from Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News, who wrote this week about Jordan Groshans and noted that he recently started a game at first base for the first time in his pro career. With Gabriel Moreno now in the majors, Groshans has assumed the title of the biggest prospect on the Bisons. And with Orelvis Martinez struggling in New Hampshire at reining in his swing-happy ways (to the point where Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs has dropped him down a bit in his top 100), Groshans may even be the top hitting prospect in the whole system at the moment.
You can't say Groshans hasn't earned the title, either. He's slashing .292/.397/.354 this season with 20 walks to 18 strikeouts. The power isn't showing up yet, but Buffalo manager Casey Candaele doesn't seem concerned. "He knows how to hit. He's not just swinging," Candaele told Harrington. "As you get older, then I would look for him to do more damage."
• Speaking of prospects, and pitching depth, Buffalo’s Adrian Hernandez throws a mean screwball, which is obviously an unusual pitch these days, but according to Sportsnet’s Ben Wagner, “isn’t just a trick pitch. It’s featured, encouraged, a difference maker and might get him in the Majors. Soon.”
In 17 1/3 innings for Buffalo this year, Hernandez has 25 strikeouts to just six walks, and has allowed just six hits and two runs. Call him up!
• Overlooked somewhat given Tuesday’s Ryu news was the fact that Ross Atkins gave an update to reporters on Danny Jansen’s status too, telling them that he’s resumed minimal baseball activity and will be going for additional imaging on his broken hand in the next few days.
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was hit on the hand by a pitch on Tuesday night — though fortunately in an area that at least seemed well padded — was taken for an X-ray following the game, which came up negative. Scary moment though!
• Interesting one from Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet, tells us about at what closer Jordan Romano has been doing with his suddenly abundant down time — and the work Matt Buschmann has been doing in trying to find mechanical tweaks for him to make to ensure his velocity stays at its peak, instead of being up and down the way it was in May.
• Nice to see Anthony Alford continuing his baseball journey. As I’m sure all Jays fans do, I wish him nothing but success. (He started off well, too, picking up a hit and an RBI in his debut!)
• It appears as though Rogers employee Mark Shapiro has helped convince Rogers employee John Tory to prioritize out of town drivers over the citizens of the city he’s mayor of. Cool cool cool cool.
• I joined my old friend Andrew Walker for an episode of his new podcast The Hedge on Tuesday, talking a little bit about my work and career, and a lot about the Blue Jays. It was a really fun chat! Check it out below via YouTube or, if you prefer, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• Lastly, Nick and I have been changing up the Blue Jays Happy Hour schedule a little bit lately, and that extends to this week’s second episode, which will be coming to you live on the Callin app following the final out of Wednesday night’s game with the Orioles! Once you’ve downloaded Callin, hit up our show page, then come join us live, drop us a Q in the chat, or give us a call.
For those who don’t listen live, the issue we had with shows not showing up has been resolved, and you’ll be able to find us again on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or anywhere else you get your podcast fix.
Next up: Wednesday, 7:07 PM ET: Jays vs. Orioles (José Berríos vs. Bruce Zimmermann), TV: Sportsnet One, Radio: Sportsnet 590
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I think you're breakdown of the pitching situation is spot on. It's not a major concern yet as it would be almost difficult for us not to make the playoffs this year (fingers crossed behind my back). I don't think we're going to catch the Yankees unless they have a complete meltdown, which is unlikely - they are a solid team (as are we). I do think we have to move on from pinning hopes on Pearson as any type of significant addition. There was a lot of that with Merryweather as well...
Trent Thornton has been quietly getting the job done -- throwing strikes in multi-inning relief. But at this point I wonder if we wouldn't be better off with him starting, whether you call him an 'opener' or not.