OAKLAND, Calif. — The Yusei Kikuchi experience sure is one hell of a wild trip. Think about it. The raw stuff to simply shove. In spite of that, a frequently changing repertoire and approach to pitch usage. And, just to keep things spicy, erratic command to spike the volatility.
Hence, 16 starts into the left-hander’s first season with the Toronto Blue Jays, the variance in his performance is just as all over the place as his pitch chart was Tuesday, when he walked five batters and hit two more over 2.1 innings of a 5-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics.
Incredibly, he gave up only four runs while allowing nine of the 14 batters he faced to reach base, making what could have an extremely ugly night one in which there was an opportunity for victory. Still, in lasting four innings or less for the eighth time this year, Kikuchi once again dumped an unfair workload on a beleaguered bullpen, with an unsteady Jose Berrios due to start a Wednesday matinee series finale.
So, suboptimal.
The bigger question, of course, is what to do with Kikuchi.
His last outing — six innings of one-run ball with one walk and eight strikeouts in a 4-1 win ocer the Tampa Bay Rays — suggested significant progress. He went back to throwing a cutter after switching over to a slider earlier this year, found the zone with that and his four-seamer, and had reason to feel optimistic he’d found a combination that works.
Then, Tuesday’s mess. Just look at this pitch chart:
Since the velocity is still there and he’s had six outings in which he’s anchored a Blue Jays victory, there’s always reason to believe the next outing has a chance to be much, much better.
Yet it’s not happening nearly consistently enough and one of the assumptions that would have made his inconsistencies more tolerable — that the rest of rotation would log enough innings around him — has collapsed and suddenly providing the runway he needs isn’t as easy.
Now, if the alternatives were appealing that would make the decision easier. But it already looks like Casey Lawrence will need to start in place of Kevin Gausman, still unable to drive off the right ankle smoked by a line drive Saturday, Thomas Hatch got roughed up in his season debut on Saturday and Max Castillo is intriguing but no sure bet, either.
Given that landscape, there’s reason to keep seeing if Kikuchi maybe figures it out.
Complicating matters is that the Blue Jays have suddenly fallen into a funk, although that may very well be tied to them having to constantly dig out of holes.
After Kikuchi gave up a pair in the first, Matt Chapman’s two-run homer in the second knotted things up and after the A’s scratched out two more in the third, one of them on a walk issued by Trent Thornton after Kikuchi left the bases loaded, Teoscar Hernandez’s solo shot in the fourth made it a 4-3 game.
A Stephen Piscotty solo blast off Thornton in the fifth added some insurance and the Blue Jays came up empty after the first two batters reached in the sixth, with pinch-hitter Vladimir Guerrero Jr., just missing a slider from A.J. Puk for a loud flyball instead a three-run homer before a bad send led to Alejandro Kirk getting thrown out at home.
