Kikuchi emerges as effective starter for Jays
Inconsistency has become thing of the past
The days of Yusei Kikuchi as a punchline are all but over. Against almost all odds, with too many hold-yourbreath innings, too many questions and with doubt being his middle name, Kikuchi has worked his way into an upper rotation kind of starting pitcher for the Blue Jays.
Not just a hope of a starter in any given game.
Not just another fifth starter in a rotation with just four starters.
Kikuchi has become something of the real deal.
Not just another arm, but one who has become a top-20 starter in an American League that has only 15 teams.
With the kind of statistical numbers that would make him a top-two starting pitcher on most teams in the American League. And yet he’s probably the fourth starter for the Jays, which tells you something about Toronto’s pitching depth.
On Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners, Kikuchi was in complete command for the six innings he pitched, allowing just one earned run. He gave up only three hits. He struck out nine. If the Blue Jays had anything resembling offence against the Mariners, he would have left the game before the seventh inning with a lead and Toronto would likely have won.
But Kikuchi must be getting used to this. He and Blue Jays fans. He’s started three games for the Jays this season. The team has scored one run in total for him while he’s pitched his 15.1 innings this season, with a rather neat earned-run average of 2.30.
“A lot of credit goes to him,” said Jays manager John Schneider. “He’s evolved as a pitcher.”
Kikuchi credits a lot of his success to “adjustments on my slider.” He used to be unusual on the mound, now he’s just unusual in postgame interviews. He hears the questions in English, but answers them in Japanese without getting the questions translated. It reminds me of boxing’s Roberto Duran, years ago, who would answer every English question asked to him in Spanish without waiting for his interpreter.
In any language, this is what pitching for the Jays will be like this season. You don’t get much support.
The Jays have played 13 games and scored in the first inning in one of them. Getting the lead early isn’t something they do. They gave up six hits in total — three after Kikuchi left after six innings — and allowed six runs. The Jays had six hits, the only run coming from a blast by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
And that run came two innings after Kikuchi had left for the day.
Before he found his place in the rotation, a place of comfort for Kikuchi and the Jays, he was his own version of Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov. He couldn’t get anybody out. He couldn’t be trusted on the mound.
He didn’t trust himself. He couldn’t discover his way. But like Samsonov, he worked his way out of the darkness, found his place — his home, really — pencilled in behind Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios and Chris Bassitt as maybe the best fourth starter in all of baseball.
Last season, Kikuchi started 32 games, which was a prop bet almost any punter would have lost. He had four starts last year with no earned runs against, 11 starts giving up just one earned run, five starts of two against him.
That’s 20 starts with a Roger Clemens kind of ERA.
When the season ended, he ranked 14th in the AL in ERA, second in starts made, 15th in strikeouts, 10th in double-play balls, sixth in strikeouts per nine innings, nine in strikeout-walk ratio, 17th in walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP), 19th in batting average against.
In a league with 75 starting pitchers — and by season’s end a whole lot more than that — those are nearly exclusive numbers.
And they are coming from a pitcher who isn’t exactly physically overwhelming, even if he struck out nine against his former team Wednesday. Kikuchi measures only six feet. He’s barely over 200 pounds. He’s not what you would call a specimen, while looking, size-wise, like he might be Houston pitcher Justin Verlander’s little brother.
The Jays had a chance to win Wednesday before the game went to extra innings, long after Kikuchi was pulled. The Guerrero homer tied the game. In the bottom of the ninth inning, they had the bases loaded and couldn’t force a walk or push the winning run across the plate.
But Kikuchi, waiting in the dugout, did his six innings of work, the way Bassitt did that Tuesday and Berrios on Monday. In the three game series against Seattle, the starters pitched 19.1 innings allowing just two earned runs.
That’s who the Blue Jays need to be. With this much pitching, with Kikuchi starting, they can get away — at times — with being marginal on offence. It’s not the prescribed formula for winning in big-league baseball. But it’s the only chance they have to succeed.