Emmet Sheehan opened the Los Angeles Dodgers’ road trip against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday as they tried to avoid a three-game skid, but the right-hander turned in a disappointing outing.
Sheehan was only able to pitch 4.2 innings while allowing four runs on eight hits. The only positive in his outing was that he struck out eight and walked none, but it just helped to run up his pitch count, rather than limit the opposing offense.
The Cardinals also scored their first run of the game when Sheehan balked with runners at second and third. Sheehan was called for the balk due to what he described as a “mental mistake.”
“I didn’t share that I was switching to the stretch,” Sheehan said. “I know the rule. It was just in the moment, I didn’t declare. Yeah, unacceptable.”
After balking in a run, Sheehan ended up allowing a two-run homer on the seventh pitch he threw to Nolan Gorman. The 26-year-old believes the balk mistake may have made things get a little more out of control for him.
“Yeah, maybe a little bit,” Sheehan admitted. “Just got to have better execution on that fastball to Gorman. Other than that, just frustrating. Stuff wasn’t where it should be. Delivery is still a little out of whack. We’re going to stay on it.”
In the third inning, Sheehan allowed another home run, this time to Alec Burelson, which made it a 4-1 game. He exited after allowing a two-out double in the fifth inning.
Emmet Sheehan’s velocity remains a concern
Sheehan’s velocity was down once again, a continued concern for him this season. Despite the dip, Sheehan insists he feels good and is “definitely 100% healthy.”
Still, his average velocity against the Cardinals was down by nearly 1 mph from his season average and 2 mph from last season’s average. He has attributed the decline to mechanical issues, but he’s continuing to work through it.
“There’s nothing I can point to and say, ‘Hey, this is the reason,'” Sheehan said. “We’re working really hard on it, and we’re going to continue working really hard on it. That’s all we can do.”
Sheehan felt his mechanics were improving with each start, and his prior outing against the Chicago Cubs seemed to confirm that. That made his regression against the Cardinals all the more aggravating.
“There’s definitely a couple different things,” Sheehan said of what he needs to improve on mechanically. “I feel like we’ve been making progress and then taking a step back. It’s definitely frustrating. We know what we need to work on. It’s just fixing it now.”
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