ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The 100th start of Yusei Kikuchi’s big-league career – a milestone that only 10 other Japanese-born players have reached – needed to be pretty much perfect with Shane McClanahan opposite him on the mound.
It wasn’t.
Instead, Kikuchi grinded his way through five mixed-results innings, at times overpowering, at times taking damage, especially on his slider, surrendering two homers and five runs that buried the Toronto Blue Jays early in what finished as a 7-3 Tampa Bay Rays victory Wednesday.
“Mistakes in the middle,” is how manager John Schneider summed up the outing. “It looked like they were kind of hunting pitches. Whole league knows that they do damage and didn’t get away with any mistakes. Stuff was there and just left too many off-speed pitches, especially sliders around the middle.”
A day after exploding for 20 runs to end a five-game losing streak fuelled by offensive drought, hits were again hard to come by, but full credit to McClanahan for that. The blow-torch lefty was full value over seven innings of four-hit ball, suppressing hard contact while generating 15 whiffs behind a fastball that sat 96.2 m.p.h and topped out at 98.6.
Blue Jays hitters swung through six of them, as well as six changeups and two curveballs, a change-of-pace offering that also earned six strike calls. The damage against him came in the fourth when Bo Bichette clipped a changeup and sent it to right-centre at 106.6 m.p.h., and promptly scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. lashed another change to the same spot for an RBI single.
That made it a 3-1 game, but Kikuchi couldn’t keep it there, allowing a run-scoring triple to Manuel Margot followed by an RBI single by Wander Franco, both on hard sliders that caught too much of the zone.
“Those sliders were getting hit so with batters later on, think it was nibbling a little bit too much,” Kikuchi said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “I ended up falling behind in counts and that was the downfall today.”
The game stayed there until the eighth when Cavan Biggio, hitting for Ernie Clement, hammered reliever Jason Adam’s first pitch over the wall in right-centre for his third homer of the season.
Nathan Lukes followed with a triple that was cashed in by a George Springer groundout while Bichette and Guerrero reached before Trevor Kelly induced an inning-ending double play from Matt Chapman.
“Definitely a little bit of energy right after that with Lukey’s triple and George’s good at-bat to get him in,” Biggio said of the attempted rally that followed his homer. “We definitely gave ourselves a chance there going into the bottom of the eighth, so yeah, it was definitely a little bit of a spark.”
The Rays, however, extinguished it quickly in the bottom half, when RBI singles by Jose Siri and Wander Franco off Yimi Garcia restored the four-run lead before Pete Fairbanks closed things out in front of a crowd of 8,699.
The Blue Jays aim for a split in the series finale when Alek Manoah goes against Zach Eflin in a Thursday matinee. A concern will be the status of Danny Jansen, who left the game after grounding out in the fifth with left groin tightness.
Of note is that catcher Tyler Heineman was pulled in the fifth inning of triple-A Buffalo’s 11-9 loss at Lehigh Valley. The Blue Jays could, in theory, taxi squad him for a couple days and rely on Daulton Varsho as an emergency catcher for a game or two to give Jansen some runway.
“We’ll see how the night unfolds and how (Thursday) goes,” said Schneider. “Just kind of taking it literally minute by minute right now.”
Kikuchi has now given up 12 runs over his last three starts and 17 in five May outings, after allowing only nine runs in five April starts. One difference has been with his slider, which opponents batted .170 against and swung through 37 per cent of the time last month, but hasn’t been the same weapon this month as he’s thrown it harder with less vertical break.
Four of the eight hits against him came on the slider, including Randy Arozarena’s infield single in the first that helped set up an RBI single by Isaac Paredes that opened the scoring and Luke Raley’s long homer to open the second. A strikeout later, Jose Siri pounded a changeup over the wall to make it 3-1 before the Rays opened it up in the fourth.
“I realize that the shape is not the greatest right now, the slider is being a little bit more like a cutter right now,” said Kikuchi. “We’ll make adjustments in preparation for the next start.”
All of it muted the milestone for Kikuchi, who signed with the Seattle Mariners ahead of the 2019 season and then joined the Blue Jays last March out of the lockout. He made 190 starts with the Seibu Lions in Japan before coming over.
“Just thinking back, being able to be healthy throughout my five years (in the big-leagues) is more what I’m thinking about on this 100th start,” said Kikuchi. “Definitely want to thank my teammates, coaches and trainers that helped me along the way.”
