Mariner Talk Chat Forum

“Yusei’s a tinkerer,” he said during the weekly Jerry Dipoto Show. “And we’re getting to know him as a player. His stuff is very good. We’ve seen the fastball up to 97, we’ve seen two above average breaking balls… we’ve seen flashes with his change-up that is primarily still a developmental pitch. We’ve seen him go through a month-long stretch where he’s an elite strike-thrower who works ahead in counts. And we’re now seeing what I think is the first slump of his major league career.

“… Yusei tends to tinker and try something new to fix things that might not be broken. And in the effort to make something better, he winds up taking a step in the wrong direction. And I love his mentality. I love how hard he works at it and how much he cares. But right now, more than anything else, we’ve got to get his command back online.”

Dipoto said it shouldn’t take long for things to click again for Kikuchi.

“He has a delivery with a hesitation when he comes to a set point,” Dipoto said. “That makes it a little tougher to create rhythm and flow as our pitching coaches work with him. But we’re learning him, we’re learning his delivery. I think it’s nothing more than slowing his body down and improving the consistency of his release slot. And my guess is it’s going to take one inning for it to click and for him to get back to the things he was doing in May, because obviously he’s had a really rough go of it in June. I don’t think it’s reflective of his talent, I think it’s reflective of that fact that he’s working too hard to change things that didn’t need to be changed.”

bpj wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:50 pm

Trying to change their players is one downfall of the Ms.

We dont need to change players, just get the players that play how they should...

Sounds like the mariners are the ones tinkering instead of letting Kikuchi be the pitcher they acquired.