The Los Angeles Dodgers made a trade in Spring Training to acquire Craig Kimbrel, hoping he would solidify the back end of their bullpen after the departure of Kenley Jansen to the Atlanta Braves.
But halfway through the season, Kimbrel has yet to find his footing with the club. While he has 15 saves in 18 opportunities, the veteran right-hander is walking more than four hitters per nine innings and has pitched to a 4.66 ERA.
Kimbrel has shown some flashes of being the dominant reliever he has been throughout his career, but it has generally been followed by a poor outing his next time out.
“I think if I had to pick something, I think it’s getting consistency of the breaking ball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about his closer’s struggles.
“I think the shape is different on almost every throw, and there’s a lot of non-competitive misses with the breaking ball that will get your pitch count up and obviously get you into some counts that you don’t want to be in.
“So I think that’s something that we got to kind of work together to harness and figure out some consistency there.”
The Dodgers aren’t sure what’s causing the issues, whether it’s a mechanical adjustment Kimbrel needs to make or another factor, but Roberts said “our guys are on it right now trying to figure out.”
Although his ERA isn’t inspiring, Kimbrel does have some things working for him. His FIP is still at an elite 2.00 mark, his xFIP is more than a run lower than his ERA at 3.10, and BABIP is at an unsustainable .408 that is sure to regress.
Plus, Kimbrel is still getting swings and misses and limiting hard contact.
All those marks inspire hope for MLB’s active saves leader and Roberts has backed him as the team’s closer, but the Dodgers manager is still surprised Kimbrel hasn’t been able to find that consistency yet.
“Given his track record, how long he’s been around, his ability to command the fastball, I think it’s really good,” Roberts said. “There’s some near misses. So now when you can command the fastball, then it kind of simplifies it as a two-pitch pitcher on what the problem is.
“But yeah, the inconsistencies given who he is, I think we’re all surprised by that.”
Kimbrel showed flashes of dominance before injury
Kimbrel was beginning to look like the pitcher the Dodgers expected him to be before getting hit in the back by a 100.5 mph line drive, which was followed by a blown save against the San Diego Padres on July 3.
When Kimbrel returned a few days later, he had a clean outing, but that was followed by another poor appearance that led to Yency Almonte replacing him with two outs in the ninth.
“That’s baseball in the sense of you’re hitting your stride, you feel good about things and then something triggers and you’re not so fine as you thought you were,” Roberts said.
“So it’s our job as a staff and obviously talking to whatever player, in this particular situation Craig, and kind of get on the same page to kind of right the ship.”
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