ANAHEIM, Calif. — Yusei Kikuchi attempts to stay away from social media, but his surroundings sometimes make it impossible. At least one clubhouse television is always tuned to MLB Network, where analysts are paid for instant reactions and fans are sometimes encouraged to air their frustrations.
Kikuchi sees everything. Most major-league players do, even those that proclaim otherwise. Anger after his trade to the Houston Astros reached its apex around July 30, a combination of Kikuchi’s calamitous counting stats and the collection of prospects general manager Dana Brown shipped to Toronto.
“I was shocked myself that this team gave up three prospects as well,” Kikuchi said through an interpreter. “But at the end of the day, I just wanted to prove Dana Brown made an unbelievable trade.”
Brown isn’t ready to brag, but Kikuchi is making it difficult. Each of his eight starts as an Astro has ended in a victory, the latest a 5-3 win against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night. Houston maintained a 4 1/2 game lead over the Seattle Mariners in the American League West, inching closer to a playoff berth that may not have happened without Kikuchi.
Breggy 💣 makes it 4-0!#Relentless pic.twitter.com/i4nT9kjWud
— Houston Astros (@astros) September 14, 2024
Kikuchi has a 3.19 ERA across eight starts as an Astro. He has thrown into the sixth inning during all of them, a feat Jake Bloss or whatever other prospect Houston would rush up from the minor leagues would not have been able to match. Underlying metrics that always suggested a positive regression have, indeed, manifested.
“With Yusei, this team is a different team,” Kikuchi’s agent, Scott Boras, said before the game.
From his home plate suite at Angel Stadium, Boras saw the same pitcher he first scouted almost a decade ago. He still stands 6-feet tall, but uses some of baseball’s best extension to “pitch like he’s 6-5.” His arsenal is again predicated around two pitches, pared from the previous two stops of Kikuchi’s major-league career.
Kikuchi’s fit at the third is unmistakable. Boras acknowledged it before Friday’s game began. As it unfolded, everything that once enticed Boras began to manifest. A simplified arsenal allowed him to retire the final 10 Angels he saw. His four-seam fastball reached 96.7 mph. Of the 33 sliders he threw, 15 were either struck foul, swung through or called a strike.
Sixty-six of Kikuchi’s 85 pitches Friday were either a four-seam fastball or slider, two pitches that buoyed Kikuchi’s path to the big leagues. After the outing, Kikuchi estimated “70 or 80 percent of my pitches were all fastballs and sliders in Japan.”
“(The Astros) knew that this type of strategy for him is very natural to him, and that’s exactly what they asked him to do when he got here,” Boras said. “And, boom, it’s really allowed him to pitch at his optimum. I think it’s exciting for both sides — for him to be optimal and for them to get (the) performance.”
Houston did not make any serious overtures for Kikuchi when he left Japan, but people with knowledge of the Astros’ process said the club did due diligence scouting him during the 2018 Nippon Professional Baseball season. Some credit for Kikuchi’s renaissance could be rooted in that knowledge, Boras said.
In August, Kikuchi’s first full month as an Astro, the four-seam fastball comprised 45.3 percent of his arsenal. He entered Friday’s start throwing his slider 46.5 percent of the time in September after spinning the pitch 35.9 percent of the time in August. Only one month in his major-league career has featured more frequent slider usage. That Kikuchi is able to throw his slider almost identical to his fastball is key.
“You’re thinking 96 and fastball and then, all of a sudden, it’s 88-89 (mph) slider,” manager Joe Espada said. “You don’t have that much time to think. You just have to react. And he’s able to locate it wherever he wants to.”
Eschewing his curveball has allowed Kikuchi more freedom to use the slider in various ways. The Astros have encouraged Kikuchi to use it in different locations, emphasizing anything to the back foot of right-handed hitters. Doing so has increased the effectiveness of his changeup, which Astros pitching coaches already implored him to deploy more upon his arrival.
“We knew that it was in there,” Espada said. “I’m just glad that he’s been receptive and been open to the adjustments we wanted him to make with pitch usage and stuff like that. But the arm has always been phenomenal. It just feels like he’s been here for many, many years. I hope it just keeps going.”
For how much longer is a mystery. Kikuchi is a free agent following the season, but his comfort in his new surroundings is apparent.
Earlier this month, after completing Matt Chapman’s contract extension with the San Francisco Giants, Boras said, “You really want to look at things that you know make players comfortable, and performing well really makes players happy where they’re at.”
Few stretches of Kikuchi’s major-league career have been more successful than this one. Not exploring avenues to extend it further would be a dereliction of duty by Brown and his baseball operations staff. For the last two winters, Houston has ignored warning signs of depleting starting pitching depth and stayed out of the market. Acquiring Kikuchi was, in part, a byproduct of its inaction last offseason.
“You get those upper-division starters that come in and just give you a lot more depth and also give you a better opportunity in the playoffs because those kind of guys are what you need,” Boras said.
Kikuchi is guaranteed two more starts before October, the lone month that matters for a franchise enjoying a golden era. His performance there will render the final verdict on a trade some hated in haste.
“Obviously, I heard a lot of what the fans had to say,” Kikuchi said. “I just wanted to prove to everybody what I’m capable of, but everything is going well right now. We have one goal in mind as a team and that’s to win the World Series.”
(Photo: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)
