COMING IN HOT!
Surging Kimbrel leads Sox to Bronx
Craig Kimbrel is not one of those pitchers who says he never looks at his stat sheet until he’s sitting on his living room couch after the season is finished.
It’s not his job to point out how ridiculously good his 2017 numbers are, but he knows what those numbers show. And those numbers are silly. Kimbrel leads all major league pitchers with at least 25 innings in strikeouts per nine innings (17.05), WHIP (0.47), opponents’ batting average (.094) and OPS (.309). He’s second in strikeoutto-walk ratio (12.00) and fourth in ERA (1.07).
Beyond the numbers, the Red Sox closer knows the basic formula that’s generating such dominant stats — “Obviously I haven’t walked as many guys, that always helps,” he said — and he understands the calculus that underlies his better command.
Kimbrel’s throwing more strikes, the unhittable variety.
The plan, which Kimbrel is executing pretty much to perfection, is to baffle the batter with a rising fastball at nearly 100 mph and a tumbling curve that drops in hard in the upper-80s, both pitches catching the edges of the strike zone and seldom over the middle of the plate or straying too far inside or outside.
This north-south look to his pitches means, more often than not, that plate appearances against him begin with the batter nodding his head up or down trying to track the fastball or the curve and end with him shaking his head on the way back to the dugout.
“I’m always trying to get guys to swing at pitches outside of the zone because anybody can hit a 100-mph fastball in the big leagues, especially if it’s in the strike zone,” Kimbrel said. “Now, I’m not yanking the ball so much, where the angle of the ball is going away from a right-handed hitter and up and in to a lefty. I’m trying to get more true backspin to where it looks middle and then it goes up. That plays a lot better than anything coming across the plate.”
He’s throwing more strikes with more success and a refined attack plan that reflects a philosophy and ferocity that borders on being unfair to hitters.
Without getting lost in too many numbers, know that Kimbrel is doing more than simply throwing harder (the velocity on his rising fastball averages 98.1 mph this season compared to 97.3 last year). He’s throwing more strikes, and when hitters swing at those strikes, they’re making less contact than ever before.
And Kimbrel’s getting them to swing at more pitches outside the strike zone, which usually results in more whiffs or weaker contact.
Kimbrel is striking out 53 percent of all batters who face him this year. No other pitcher in baseball is above 50 percent.
The new, improved 2017 Kimbrel is no accident. It’s by design, and it’s nearly flawless.
Brian Bannister smiles quite a bit talking about the results Kimbrel is getting this year.
“He’s at a level now where just being consistent is dominating. He’s repeating himself, making every pitch competitive, and you just see the results,” the Red Sox assistant pitching coach said. “We talked a lot last year about, ‘What did you feel like in Atlanta when you had those historically dominant years?’ I know some things changed in San Diego, his arm slot became a little lower, he was pitching a little more side to side. You’re getting the 2012, 2013 Craig Kimbrel right now.”
This top-to-bottom approach, rather than balls too far inside or outside, is not merely a mechanical adjustment by Kimbrel. His mental approach had to change as well. That change is harder to define. Suffice it to say, Kimbrel understands it.
“Last year, I knew I was getting around the ball at times, and that comes with not trusting it sometimes,” Kimbrel said. “This year, I get on top of it and throw it.”
When asked why his trust level would fluctuate, Kimbrel changes it up.
“Every time I go to the mound, I’m confident I’m going to get through the inning,” he said. “I would use conviction with a pitch more than trusting a pitch. It’s throwing a pitch with more conviction. And there’s all kinds of scenarios that come into play with that. We don’t have all day to talk about that.”
That would be another illuminating conversation to have, but to sum up, Kimbrel is a strikethrowing machine whose stuff is too good to hit that well.
“I do feel good, but I think in baseball, sometimes when you look at the game from a numbers standpoint, sometimes the difference, especially for a reliever, in a month or a year can be one pitch, if somebody makes that catch for you or the umpire gives you that call, so there’s a fine line for me getting off to a good start,” he said. “There’s a lot of factors going into those differences from year to year.”
Kimbrel’s 2017 numbers don’t lie, and they are not popping up out of the blue.
And this year, everything about Kimbrel’s game adds up to him being as dominating a closer as there is in the game today.