James Kaprielian struggles to throw strikes as A’s suffer 10-1 blowout loss to Red Sox
BOSTON — Talking to reporters in the Fenway Park dugout Wednesday afternoon, manager Mark Kotsay outlined the importance of fastball use for the Oakland Athletics’ starting pitchers.
“You’ve got to establish your fastball, you’ve got to be able to locate it and command it,” Kotsay said. “These hitters are too good to just rely on breaking pitches, and for us, any good quality fastball strike is a positive and generally creates weak contact early count, which allows you to get deeper into games.”
James Kaprielian, then, veered widely from that ideal in a brief and wild outing for the A’s, who fell 10-1 to the Red Sox for their 13th loss in 14 games.
Kaprielian relies heavily on his four-seam fastball. He threw it 55.5% of the time in his first eight starts — most of any A’s starter with at least 30 innings — and upped that rate in two of his previous three outings. Establishing his fastball allows Kaprielian to get to his slider, curveball and changeup. Wednesday showed the effect when he can’t locate it.
Kaprielian threw 55 fastballs, 33 of which Boston hitters took for balls. He walked three batters in his first inning and six total across 3 2/3 innings, failing to gain a feel for the pitch. He began the fourth with backto-back four-pitch walks, missing with seven fastballs in that stretch. He allowed seven hits before exiting in that inning with the A’s trailing 6-0.
“I think the inability to spot that fastball tonight was due to flying off the baseball — when your front shoulder flies off, your hips rotate early and your arm’s slightly late, everything’s going to be off for him,” A’s pitching coach Scott Emerson said. “Just looking at it on the ipad tonight, the ball was leaking back over the plate and ... all pitchers aren’t very good when that happens.”
When he did near the strike zone with fastballs, Boston hitters pounced.
They swung at 17 of Kaprielian’s fastballs, missed only one and put eight into play with an average 96.4 mph exit velocity — above what Statcast deems hard-hit. Having to throw his secondary pitches for strikes also left those vulnerable. Kaprielian tried three changeups in a row in the second inning to a red-hot Rafael Devers, who hammered the last for a two-run homer.
“If you’re not able to locate the fastball and throw it for a strike, you put yourself in bad counts, bad position, leaves us where we are right now,” Kaprielian said. “It’s unfortunate, didn’t make the adjustment and need to get better. *
“I’m embarrassed. Just didn’t give the team a chance to win. I’m wearing this one hard. It’s one I’m going to have to flush, come back tomorrow and go straight to work.”
Consistency has eluded Kaprielian since his injury-delayed start to the season. His ERA is 6.31 over nine outings. Notably, he is not generating the swing-and-miss numbers he did last season. Kaprielian entered Wednesday inducing a 20.7% whiff rate on his pitches, down from 27.2% last year. His overall strikeout rate was down to 15.6% after 24.5% last season. He also has thrown fewer firstpitch strikes, leaving him behind early in counts and complicating the early outs Kotsay cited pregame. Kaprielian has yet to complete six innings in a start this season.
“I haven’t had the strikeouts I’ve typically had in the past,” Kaprielian said. “I don’t know what it is. I’m not really paying attention to spin or anything like that, no one’s kind of said anything. Maybe I’m just not doing a good enough job of putting guys away and making or executing the right pitch at the right time.”
Command was not a recent issue — Kaprielian had totaled four walks across five starts before facing the Red Sox — but he has totaled 19 walks and 27 strikeouts in 41 1/3 innings this year. Devers’ home run was the 10th he has surrendered.
Swing game: Another meager output from the A’s offense featured a couple of bright spots. Matt Davidson, drawing a pinchhit at-bat against left-hander Jake Diekman in the sixth, crushed a 431-foot home run over the Green Monster for his first with the A’s. The A’s have scored one or zero runs in 22 of 64 games this season, most in the majors.
Davidson’s homer appeared to clear the seats behind Fenway’s left-field wall toward Lansdowne Street. “It’s pretty cool,” he said. “This place is obviously awesome to play at, just how old it is and how many great players have played here and legends. Just to be able to say you did that is pretty cool.”
Jonah Bride collected his first major-league hit in the fifth inning, grounding a 2-2 pitch from Josh Winckowski into right field for a single. Bride, who made his debut Tuesday night, added a line-drive single in the seventh.
“It was great to get that out of the way, huge accomplishment for sure,” said Bride, who said his father, aunt and uncle, agent and friends were at the game. “My mom’s been sick the last couple days so her and my sister and my brother couldn’t make it. But I know that they’re watching and cheering big at home.”