Kikuchi clicks but Berríos sputters as the Jays win one then lose one on Wednesday and Thursday
On Kikuchi getting it right, more struggles for Berríos, Teoscar, Tapia, prospects, Blue Jays Happy Hour Live, and more!
I wrote about neither the Jays’ series-ending victory over the Yankees on Wednesday, nor their series-opening loss against the Guardians in Cleveland on Friday. And since I won’t be writing anything until my Weekend Up post on either Sunday or Monday morning, I figured I’d better say something about these ones. So here’s two up!
Er… one up and one down!
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Up: Wednesday: Jays 2 - Yankees 1
This was easily the more interesting of the two games we’ll talk about here, and that’s for one reason: Yusei Kikuchi.
Blue Jays fans hadn’t seen seen much to get excited about from the newly-inked $36 million man before this one, but his six-inning, three-hit, one-walk, one-run, seven-strikeout performance was definitely a step in the right direction.
Granted, Kikuchi isn’t immune to having good performances. He had a 3.48 ERA through 16 starts in the first half of 2021, for example, and was named to the American League All-Star team. But it's how he was successful on Wednesday night that is the most encouraging.
Statcast still picks up his secondary offering as a cutter, but he calls it a slider. Over his last two starts it has been somewhere in between what were, at the start of the year, two quite different pitches. The slider is now closer to where the cutter was in terms of velocity, sitting around 88-89 mph (as opposed to 91-ish for the "true" cutter, and 82-85 for the now ditched slider). It runs in toward right-handed hitters about as much as the old slider did, which is unlike his old cutter, which very definitely had a slight arm-side run to it at the end of 2021 (per Statcast). It also drops significantly more than the old cutter did — about 30 inches on average, compared to 20 or so for the cutter — though less than the slider did, which had 40 inches of vertical break.
Batters have produced a .521 wOBA against Kikuchi's "cutter" this year, but on Wednesday the Yankees were able to muster just a .284 mark against the new version of the pitch. Its effectiveness was a huge part of the story of Wednesday night. There were two more similarly important parts, however. One being Kikuchi's ability to throw his fastball for strikes — something that had eluded him in his previous start in Boston.
Kikuchi also worked his changeup effectively to right-handed hitters, throwing 14 of them, and generating four whiffs on eight swings — all of them for strike three! — with the other swings producing two outs and two foul balls.
The changeup isn't his most-used weapon, but it may not be a coincidence that Kikuchi's 2021 season started to go downhill not long after the sticky stuff ban, which was right around the time the pitch went from being in the 1,600-1,800 rpm range to... uh... not that.
On Wednesday the pitch averaged 1,680 rpm — which is right about where it has been all season so far.
This was just one start, of course, but Kikuchi with better command, a better changeup, and slider/cutter that produced either a whiff or a called strike 40% of the time he threw it? That could certainly work. That could certainly work indeed.
Hey and the bullpen’s pretty good, too!
Down: Thursday: Jays 5 - Guardians 6
It's going to take a lot more than this to get me worried about José Berríos, but he's now five starts removed from his disastrous turn on opening day, and this still looks awfully ugly!
Berríos didn't record a single strikeout in this one, allowing six earned runs on eight hits and one walk over 4 2/3 innings of work. He now has just 20 Ks in 28 2/3 innings this season. He is also, quite clearly, the third best starter on this Blue Jays team.
That last one is not exactly a shocking turn of events, because it’s hardly surprising that Kevin Gausman and Alek Manoah have been excellent, but how quickly Berríos has fallen to number three, and how long this hiccup has lasted is a bit startling!
Again, I don’t think it will last. The results always come for this guy, and there’s nothing in the data that looks different than what he was doing last year, when he produced a career-best 3.52 ERA. Velocity, break, spin rate, location. It’s all about the same — except maybe the fact that his four-seamer and sinker have been in the zone noticeably more often, and his curveball and changeup have been so less — but you’d really like to see him figure it the hell out.
He’s just not putting guys away the way he’s capable of. Two of Cleveland’s hits in the third, two more in the fourth, and three in the fifth came with two strikes. Not ideal! Though, to be fair, the cold and rainy weather wasn’t exactly great to be pitching in.
“It was the weather and my spikes. I couldn’t stand the right way. And also my hand was getting wetter and wetter. But I wanted to keep trying to compete out there. I tried to do my best,” Berrios told reporters, including Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet, following the game.
However it came about, it’s a shame that this all went down in a game where the Jays actually managed a little bit of offence. For just the 10th time in 26 games, the Jays reached the five run mark in this one. Bo Bichette picked up three more hits, Vlad continued to do Vladdy things, Zack Collins doubled, Santiago Espinal had a pair of hits, Alejandro Kirk finally homered. Even Bradley Zimmer got in on the action.
Less so? Inxeplicable lead-off hitter Raimel Tapia. Though I will say this for Tapia: his 49.3% groundball rate is on course to be his lowest since he had a 25 game stint in the majors for the Rockies in 2015. His hard hit percentage is the highest of his career, as is his barrel rate, as is his average exit velocity. And his average launch angle is trending in the right direction again after cratering over the last two seasons.
There could very well be something there. But with Teoscar Hernández due back as soon as today, the opportunities to show it are going to start drying up in a hurry. And his 44 wRC+ isn’t exactly screaming for more reps — especially not in the lead-off spot!
Hey, and speaking of Teoscar, let’s move on to other notes!
Other notes
• Call him up!
• Brendon’s out here digging into Low-A exit velocities. You love to see it! And I think he’s right that Adrian Pinto is a guy that the Jays definitely liked quite a bit — more than it may have looked at the time when he was included in the Randal Grichuk-Raimel Tapia trade.
The power isn't showing up yet, despite the exit velos, but Pinto has four walks to five strikeouts in 39 plate appearances for the D-Jays and is slashing .258/.410/.387. Not bad for a 19-year-old who was last year’s MVP in the Dominican Summer League.
• More prospect stuff comes from Scott Mitchell of TSN, who has a fresh notebook post up with notes and quotes from Jays director of player development Joe Sclafani on Ricky Tiedemann (“He’s just been overpowering”), Orelvis Martinez (“No one is pressing the panic button or anything over here"”), Yosver Zulueta (“He looked electric”), Adrian Hernandez (“He’s in the (bullpen) mix, man”), and others.
• Programming note (that you will already know about if you watched yesterday’s game!):
• Lastly, in case you missed it, Nick and I recorded a new episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour live at the conclusion of Thursday’s game. You can hear it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and using this RSS link in any podcast app of your choice. Join us again at the conclusion of Sunday’s game, when we’ll be doing it again — and taking your calls!
Be sure to get the Callin app, and hit up our show page to join us live on Sunday!
Next up: Friday, 7:10 PM ET: Jays @ Guardians (Kevin Gausman vs. Shane Bieber), TV: Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
A great pitching matchup is coming our way on Friday night (provided the weather cooperates), with Gausman versus Bieber. According to the data from Props.cash — player props research made easy! — Gausman’s impressive strikeout ability and recent run of success, coupled with Cleveland’s inability to take walks (especially against RHP), gives him a good chance to hit the over on 6.5 strikeouts.
Update: The weather did not, in fact, cooperate. I guess we’ll see Gausman on Saturday for a twin bill starting at 2:10 PM ET. The other game will feature starters Ross Stripling and Triston McKenzie.
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Hey Stoeten. I’ve been listening afterwards on Callin so it’s not a big deal or anything, but when I click the RSS link and open it in Overcast I get a message saying “OPML Error -- Could not read OPML file, or it does not contain any elements.” Not sure if something is borked or if I’m just being a boomer again...