Game 27, Dodgers at Mariners
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Clayton Kershaw, 4:10pm
Kikuchi was scratched from his last start, but is back to face perhaps the greatest lefty of his generation. I can’t imagine how often coaches just tell lefties to copy Clayton Kershw. Not the weird wind-up; that’s not something any coach wants to see emulated. But the interplay between a straight, rising fastball, a diving curveball, and then a great slider in between. As M’s fans, we remember the team working with James Paxton to Kershaw-ify his delivery, a move that lasted a few years before he dropped his arm angle down in the minors and suddenly started throwing 98. But I think they may have done it again: I think the M’s have told Yusei Kikuchi to look at some of the things Kershaw’s done over the years.
For years, Kershaw’s three pitch mix worked so well because he had impeccable command of each (he also throws a change, because hey, why not). He was able to limit home runs and walks, and still get Ks at the top of the zone with the fastball, or the bottom of the zone with breaking balls. After his first few years in the league, his GB% was consistently high in large part because of those breaking balls; batters sitting fastball adjusted late, and ended up topping some of them.
Since 2017, the new drag-less baseball and declining velo meant that Kershaw was no longer the HR-suppressing guy he was at his 2011-2016 peak. He’s given up 73 HRs since 2017, and it hasn’t really mattered. Like Justin Verlander or Gerrit Cole, Kershaw has traded solo HRs for dominance in every other facet of the game. And unlike Verlander/Cole, he’s had to do it without top-shelf velocity.
Specifically, in 2019, Kershaw sat at 90-91 with his fastball and leaned in to becoming a junkball artist. He threw his FB 43% of the time, his slider 40%, and his curve 16%. The slider got whiffs and grounders, and the fastball kept hitters honest. In part due to his ability to get ahead, batters swung at over 60% of his sliders, but under 45% of his fastballs. If you’re putting Kershaw sliders in play more than Kershaw fastballs, you’ve pretty much already lost.
This year, he’s thrown *even more* breaking balls, and batters are hitting a staggering number of ground balls. He’s at 65% in the early going, 17 percentage points higher than last year. The key is that slider, with 88% of all balls in play getting smacked into the ground. It’s always been a cutter, at only 3 MPH slower than his FB last year, but a bit more than that now, as his FB velo’s returned somewhat. He’s tweaked the movement on that slider, getting a bit more drop despite throwing it at 88 (his FB’s now 92). Batters know it’s coming, but can’t quite stop.
I mention all of this because a lot of it sounds like Yusei Kikuchi’s revised gameplan. Gone is last year’s 86 MPH slider – a pitch that yielded 11 HRs last year. Instead, he’s now throwing a power cutter at 91-92, just a few MPH lower than his revved-up fastball. Last year, he threw that slider less than 30% of the time, but it’s now his #1 pitch. It doesn’t have the drop it once did, but it doesn’t need to; it’s functionally a fastball, and batters looking four-seam either top it or swing over it. And batters looking cutter aren’t ready for a four-seam – his whiff% on his fastball has doubled since last year. Like Kershaw, Kikuchi’s GB% has spiked.
Even better for Kikuchi, he’s yet to give up a HR. Even with the ground ball spike, he’s been quite lucky to avoid dingers thus far, but it’s worth noting that even if he wasn’t lucky on HR/FB ratio, he’d still be giving up fewer between an improved K rate AND all of those grounders. So why isn’t his ERA following the trend? The one thing Kikuchi hasn’t emulated is Kershaw’s consistently amazing strand rates. That’s going to take some additional work, even if Kikuchi’s absurdly low 55% strand rate should regress towards the mean.
1: Haggerty, LF
2: Moore, SS
3: Lewis, DH
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, 1B
6: Lopes, RF
7: Long, 2B
8: Bishop, CF
9: Odom, C
SP: Kikuchi
An off day for the struggling JP Crawford, while Evan White rests the knee he hurt on a foul ball in last night’s contest. Kyle Lewis gets a DH day, allowing Braded Bishop to play his more natural position of CF. I think the team’s technically better at 1B and SS at the plate, but the overall line-up is…not a great one. We’ll see if Kershaw takes advantage.
Kikuchi’s best friend on the team seemed to be Dan Vogelbach, so we’ll see how he’s adjusting to life without “Uncle Vogie.” Kyle Seager’s wife tweeted that her kids have never loved a teammate as much as they loved Vogie. I think all of these players recognize that a DH can’t stick on the roster with a sub .200 average and sub .400 SLG%, but I think a lot of players are missing a surprisingly good clubhouse guy. We’ll see if someone else steps up to fill the Uncle Vogie role, or if the clubhouse chemistry is a little different (not necessarily worse) going forward.
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5 Responses to “Game 27, Dodgers at Mariners”
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Ugh. Give up 5 funs against Kershaw, the game’s basically over. His pitches are absurd.
… as is his wind-up. 😀
Throw it back! Throw it back!
Still cool seeing Newsome’s debut. But yeah, this game was probably over after the 3rd.
Lot of speculation over a possible Walker trade out there today.
If he’s moved for a non-dominant reliever, I’ll be ticked. He’s inexpensive and pitching like a solid number 2.
Seattle should be more interested in extending him than trading him.
Too bad Vogey’s swing was so bad. If his swing was even 1/10th as good as his personality, he would have been a good player. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t teach him a better swing in the time they had him.