GDT 2/4 | Blue Jays (3-1) @ Yankees (2-2) | April 12 — 7:05 PM

[Eat My Shatkins]

Ugh

 

Vladdy and his ground ball problems when he's struggling

[John_Havok]

Dang Vlads timing still isn’t there yet on plus velocity fastballs

[BuckHenry]

Vladdy with a classic 2 bounce ground ball …. Ouch !

[Daniel Labude]

#1 way to get the Jays out, throw a first pitch fastball inside off the plate...every hitter will swing at it

[JFD]

How is that A's offense still doing good

[JFD]

That's more like our Kay

[saskjayfan]

Kay against the top of the Yankee order....seems like a manager error.

[Abomination]

Cortes' mustache alone should make the Yankees reconsider their stupid facial hair policy. Just let the man grow out a damn beard.

 

I've often wondered if that facial hair policy is even legal. If a player just grew one anyway, I don't think the Yankees could legally suspend them. They could bench them (would probably cause all kinds of hell to be raised by the PA) or trade them, but I'm not sure they could do anything else.

[Laika]

Okay so maybe Kikuchi just sucks

[ColonelTigh]

At this point, just burn Chapman out.

[Omar]

Well that sucked:mad:

[JFD]

**crickets**

[Solaxys]

Ah well, beat up Cole tomorrow.

 

Seriously though, if I see Collins/Tapia as DH tomorrow,

[Stangstag]

Okay so maybe Kikuchi just sucks

 

He was just OK. Gave up some hard contact but the homerun was a cheapie anyways.

 

Need to score some fookin runs. Gettem tomorrow

[Laika]

He was just OK. Gave up some hard contact but the homerun was a cheapie anyways.

 

Need to score some fookin runs. Gettem tomorrow

 

Home run was a scraper but he could have given up 3 runs in the first too but got lucky

 

His fastball was terrible. Missing so much it was almost useless.

[Stangstag]

Home run was a scraper but he could have given up 3 runs in the first too but got lucky

 

His fastball was terrible. Missing so much it was almost useless.

 

He still looked better than Berrios, and we’re not really judging him on his mess of a first start.

 

IMO we can fairly evaluate Kikuchi after 5 or so starts. If he still looks like crap then maybe his time in the rotation is limited

[BCZ]

He still looked better than Berrios, and we’re not really judging him on his mess of a first start.

 

IMO we can fairly evaluate Kikuchi after 5 or so starts. If he still looks like crap then maybe his time in the rotation is limited

 

Pass on waiting 5 starts. Just saw 1 and it's official - he still sucks!

[Stangstag]

Pass on waiting 5 starts. Just saw 1 and it's official - he still sucks!

 

If you think he’s gonna be bumped from the rotation before June even if he’s getting lit up every start… I got some bad news for you

[Laika]

He still looked better than Berrios, and we’re not really judging him on his mess of a first start.

 

IMO we can fairly evaluate Kikuchi after 5 or so starts. If he still looks like crap then maybe his time in the rotation is limited

 

Yeah but Berrios has a long track record of good, and his butterfly command issues were kind of obvious.

 

I think this is just what Kikichu can look like normally against a good offense.

 

Anyway, they can fix him maybe. He loses the zone with his 4 seamer and then uses his weaker FB variations as a crutch to hit the zone and they get hammered.

[G-Snarls]

Yeah but Berrios has a long track record of good, and his butterfly command issues were kind of obvious.

 

I think this is just what Kikichu can look like normally against a good offense.

 

Anyway, they can fix him maybe. He loses the zone with his 4 seamer and then uses his weaker FB variations as a crutch to hit the zone and they get hammered.

 

Very Dickey-esque

[Ray]

Still have zero idea why Kikuchi uses that cutter as much as he does. Pretty long track record at this point of it being an ineffective pitch. From 2021:

 

Cutter: .426 xWOBA, 19.5 Whiff%

4-seam: .362 xWOBA, 30.3 Whiff%

Slider: .286 xWOBA, 31.2 Whiff%

Changeup: .194 xWOBA, 39.6 Whiff%

 

You have major leaguers unable to do anything against your secondary pitches. Yeah, the results against the fastball aren’t great, but if you ditch that cutter and focus on controlling the fastball and sequence it well alongside your secondaries, you could be really good.

 

I’ll give Kikuchi a pass for a couple starts because the Jays and Pete Walker apparently don’t mess with pitch mix immediately after acquiring a pitcher, but I’ve already seen enough of that cutter after one start.

[Stangstag]

Very Dickey-esque

 

Dickey was somewhat useful during his jays tenure. Threw 800 innings of 4-ish ERA over 4 seasons.

 

Ugly s*** to watch, but i’ll take that as a 5th starter any year

[Laika]

Still have zero idea why Kikuchi uses that cutter as much as he does. Pretty long track record at this point of it being an ineffective pitch. From 2021:

 

Cutter: .426 xWOBA, 19.5 Whiff%

4-seam: .362 xWOBA, 30.3 Whiff%

Slider: .286 xWOBA, 31.2 Whiff%

Changeup: .194 xWOBA, 39.6 Whiff%

 

You have major leaguers unable to do anything against your secondary pitches. Yeah, the results against the fastball aren’t great, but if you ditch that cutter and focus on controlling the fastball and sequence it well alongside your secondaries, you could be really good.

 

I’ll give Kikuchi a pass for a couple starts because the Jays and Pete Walker apparently don’t mess with pitch mix immediately after acquiring a pitcher, but I’ve already seen enough of that cutter after one start.

 

I think he can't command the fastball. Like, can't even hit the zone sometimes.

[Deadpool]

Dickey was somewhat useful during his jays tenure. Threw 800 innings of 4-ish ERA over 4 seasons.

 

Ugly s*** to watch, but i’ll take that as a 5th starter any year

 

Too bad we gave up assets to return an ace...

[max silver]

I think he can't command the fastball. Like, can't even hit the zone sometimes.

 

That was my observation as well, it's almost like the guy is closing his eyes before releasing his pitches as he generally has no idea where his fastball is going to end up. On one pitch he'll miss several inches up and off the plate to his arm side, then on the next he'll groove one down the middle etc. Constantly falling behind makes it tough for your secondary pitches to be effective as hitters can really key into looking for pitches to drive.

 

Kikuchi's heat maps for 2021 show far too many middle middle meatballs, he's going to need to really iron out the command if he's to have any kind of success. Could this be a result of not being able to grip the baseball? This is more of a casual observation as I don't know how to break down heat maps over time, but but after the sticky stuff crackdown his results really cratered. How much of this is due to the stark loss of spin on his pitches vs poor location is an interesting topic.

[Terminator]

His last game action was in ST on April 1. Hopefully he and Berrios and are just ironing out some (massive) wrinkles after the short spring.

[TwistedLogic]

This looks exactly like I thought it would.

 

[Terminator]

This looks exactly like I thought it would.

 

 

+1.74 is one of the worst I've ever seen

[max silver]

This looks exactly like I thought it would.

 

 

Another day another lousy umpiring performance. It's remarkable that people in the game day thread were blaming Vladdy for not swinging at missed call number 1, when you have a player with elite plate discipline you don't want them hacking away at obvious balls early in the game well before you've even established that the umpire is going to be causing headaches with bogus ball/strike calls.

[TwistedLogic]

I still don't understand why they chose not to use robo umps. It's beyond frustrating as a fan that they opt to get the calls wrong when the technology is there to get it right.

 

Because the ******** prima donna players voted against it. Thankfully, the league now has the power to unilaterally implement rule changes with 45-day notice and can have robo umps in place for 2023.