THE COMING OF CHET
On the pitcher’s mound, Chad Kuhl isn’t Chad. He’s Chet. That alternative fact comes courtesy of fellow starter Trevor Williams. He assigned Kuhl the alter ego “Chet” — a nickname he’ll wear on his uniform Aug. 20 in the Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pa. — at some point last season, giving a new name to the fiery version of Kuhl which shows itself every fifth day. So in his start Sunday in Toronto, Kuhl will channel Chet. “Chad is everybody’s friend. You say hi to Chad,” Kuhl explained. “Chet is on the mound.”
Majors league pitchers, particularly starting pitchers, can be creatures of habit. Some, such as Williams, can be quite comical too. When they take the ball, however, a transformation occurs. There are no smiles. Their affable natures are cloaked by intense stares and bulldog scowls. It’s a different dude out there. “Everyone has an alter ego,” Williams said. His? “My angry name? Travis,” Williams said. “I have Trevor, Travis and Tommy.” “Who is Tommy?” Wade LeBlanc asked. “Tommy is fun Trevor,” Williams replied. The sobriquets have taken hold in the clubhouse, even for those who would prefer something with a little better backstory. Kuhl, for one, has borne the nickname “Kuhl Whip” for ages — it’s his Twitter handle, too. His teammates ignore it. LeBlanc asked Gerrit Cole, “Do you call him Kuhl Whip?” Cole laughed, knowing Kuhl wished he would, and replied, “I call him Chet.”
“Wait,” LeBlanc asked, turning back to Williams. “What’s my alter ego?” Williams paused for a moment. “Wade.” Name game aside, there’s no question Kuhl isn’t the pitcher he was when he debuted June 26, 2016. That day, he was firing with the weapons which had helped him rise swiftly through the Pirates minor league system — a low-90s mph sinker, a slider and a changeup. He intended to be a ground-ball guy who had the ability to go get 95 mph if he needed to.
This season, Kuhl’s average fastball velocity is 95.6 mph. He threw “95 percent two-seamers” last year, Kuhl said, and now splits the share evenly between two- and four-seam fastballs. And then there’s the curveball, a pitch Kuhl broke back out in May for the first time in seven years.
“A lot of people want to use the terms ‘evolution’ and ‘change,’ ” Kuhl said. “I think I just added.”
He added velocity. He added variety.va The impetus for change, according to Kuhl, came from conversations with teammates over the past year. They admitted that the lack of a significant velocity differential between Kuhl’s sinker and his slider meant they could sit on a fastball and still slow their swing slightly if fooled by a slider and have a shot at a cheap single.
Kuhl started to reconsider the curveball. He threw it in high school, but it morphed into a slider when he pitched at University of Delaware. If he returned the curve to his quiver of pitches, Kuhl figured, a spinner flying 8-10 mph slower than the slider would add a wrinkle.
“[Hitters] can’t use the same speed to their swing,” Kuhl said. “They have to sit and wait.”
Kuhl tried the pitch in the bullpen in early May, watched closely by pitching coach Ray Searage. On May 16, a day Kuhl allowed the Washington Nationals six runs in four-plus innings, the curve went live. With Ryan Zimmerman at bat — Kuhl’s last hitter of the game — Francisco Cervelli signaled for a first-pitch curveball. It missed for a ball, but it was close.
“It came back quicker than I thought,” Kuhl said.
In his May 31 start against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Kuhl tossed 15 curveballs. It officially was part of his repertoire. And it has stayed there. Kuhl has thrown the curve 73 times, according to Statcast. Only one has gone for a hit — an Ian Desmond home run June 14. In June, manager Clint Hurdle said Kuhl took to the curve “like nobody I’ve seen in 43 years.”
“It’s been amazing,” Cervelli said. “I love that pitch.”
“He had pretty big weapons before that,” backup catcher Chris Stewart added. “You throw one more in the mix, it’s huge.”
On the surface, Kuhl’s results haven’t shifted much 2016 to 2017. This season, he has a slightly higher ERA (4.53 to 4.20), WHIP (1.422 to 1.316) and a slightly lower FIP (3.81 to 3.95). But there are markers of improvement. The swinging-strike rate has climbed and the hard contract rate decreased. Since the start of July, Kuhl has a 2.93 ERA and .610 opponents OPS.
“These games are the best versions of me,” Kuhl said. “If I can do all these things — elevate at the top, throw the curveball, throw the changeup and still have that twoseamer to get the ground ball — I think that’s a winning combination.”
What takes time to grasp, Cervelli and Stewart agreed, is the mental side of pitching. There is a steep learning curve for young pitchers. Pitches are only one part of the equation. There is a difference, Stewart said, between controlling a situation and allowing it to control you.
For Kuhl, then, there’s a time to channel Chet and a time to curtail him.
“He’s obviously a high-energy, highemotion guy,” Stewart said. “We’re trying to teach him when to use those emotions and when to back off a little and stay under control more. Gerrit used to be a really highemotion guy. He can still be that guy, but he understands when it’s helping him and when it’s hurting him.”