Article: Easton Lucas Aces His First Test

[Davy Andrews]

With Max Scherzer on the IL, Easton Lucas mowed the Nationals down on Work From Dome day.

If you had Easton Lucas outdueling Washington starter MacKenzie Gore on your bingo card for this season, you might want to invest in some lottery tickets. On Wednesday afternoon, Lucas, the 28-year-old southpaw with just eight major-league appearances to his name, all of them in relief, wiped the floor with the Nationals. He picked up the win as the Blue Jays dispatched the Nats, 4-2. Lucas started the season at Triple-A Buffalo, but what looked like it would be a spot start while Max Scherzer attempted to figure out his chronic thumb inflammation ended up as an impressive audition. The game was the subject of the team’s Work From Dome promotion, and whether or not any fans took the Blue Jays up on the offer, Lucas certainly put in work. “Way to step up,” Scherzer told the young left-hander once his day was finished.

In fact, Wednesday was actually supposed to be Kevin Gausman’s turn to pitch, but the Blue Jays decided to give him a bit more rest and the tougher task of facing the Mets in their home opener. Lucas got to face the lowly Nationals at home in Toronto as the rain screamed down outside. He delivered, going five scoreless innings, and although he only struck out three Nationals, he allowed just one hit and two walks. Not bad for a player the team picked up on waivers back in July, and who came into the game with a career 9.82 ERA over 11 2/3 innings. Lucas did run excellent numbers in the minors last season, putting up a 2.75 ERA and 3.61 FIP while striking out more than a batter per inning. Making that performance even more impressive, he had to split his 38 38 appearances between the Triple-A affiliates of the A’s, Tigers, and Blue Jays (in addition to the eight major-league games he split between those three teams).

“I got back (to the locker-room) and I had a couple of hundred text messages,” Lucas told reporters after the game. “I’m going to go over there and start responding as soon as I get the chance.”

The Blue Jays offense was bolstered by George Springer, Andrés Giménez, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., all of whom extended their respective hot streaks, but Lucas was the story of the day. He led with his four-seam fastball, which averaged 93.1 mph and topped out at 94.9. Lucas threw the fastball 55% of the time and his changeup 32% of the time, mixin in the occasional cutter or slider. The fastball was the star of the show, earning nine whiffs on 26 pitches, a 35% rate. To put that in perspective, Mason Miller’s 100.9-mph four-seamer had the best whiff rate in baseball last season: 37.2%. It’s undeniable that the Nationals are a whiff-prone team, and coming into Wednesday’s game, they had the highest strikeout rate in baseball. That surely helped Lucas plenty. Nonetheless, this was the first start of his career, and he deserves plenty of credit for acing the test.

It's hard to imagine that this performance won’t improve Lucas’s chances of getting the ball again when this spot in the rotation rolls around next week. That would be a bigger test, as the Blue Jays will be in Fenway Park to face the Red Sox. “We’ve liked him since we’ve acquired him,” said manager John Schneider. “And I think an outing like today does nothing but boost our confidence in him and hopefully it boosts his confidence in himself.”

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[Terminator]

I'm not super confident he can keep producing whiffs like that on his 93 mph fastball.

Stuff+ was 99 yesterday but his Location+ was 109.

As Davy said, pitching against the Nats helped. And I suppose that's all you can ask from a #5 anyway is to pitch well against bad teams. Hopefully he can stick.

[Orgfiller]

32 minutes ago, Terminator said:

I'm not super confident he can keep producing whiffs like that on his 93 mph fastball.

Stuff+ was 99 yesterday but his Location+ was 109.

As Davy said, pitching against the Nats helped. And I suppose that's all you can ask from a #5 anyway is to pitch well against bad teams. Hopefully he can stick.

He did have a 105 Stuff+ on the 4-seam and 108 on the cutter so the primary pitches are legit enough for a #5 starter. The model thinks the slider is right around average - although it's rated well in the past as a reliever- and the change is awful, although I don't know how good it is at evaluating offspeed. For instance, it thinks Gausman's splitter hasn't been that good in the tracking era which doesn't pass the sniff test.

[Terry Mesmer]

Good to see. I wanted the Jays to claim him because he was a hard-throwing lefty. I was surprised they turned him into a starter in Buffalo -- where he thrived.

[max silver]

5 hours ago, Orgfiller said:

He did have a 105 Stuff+ on the 4-seam and 108 on the cutter so the primary pitches are legit enough for a #5 starter. The model thinks the slider is right around average - although it's rated well in the past as a reliever- and the change is awful, although I don't know how good it is at evaluating offspeed. For instance, it thinks Gausman's splitter hasn't been that good in the tracking era which doesn't pass the sniff test.

I might be inventing a quote that he never actually used, but I think that Buck Martinez would suggest that Easton Lucas looked really starterish in his season debut.