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Rays Game 46 Preview: Command the Critical Concern for Jeremy Hellickson

Robbie Knopf — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:47:01 +0000

By all accounts, Jeremy Hellickson should be having a career year right now. His curveball has joined with his fastball and changeup to give him three plus pitches. And in large part because of that, Hellickson is setting career bests for strikeouts per nine innings (7.4) and walks per 9 innings (2.7). He’s throwing more strikes than ever (64% of his pitches), allowing less contact (75% of the swings against him), and his 4.03 xFIP is the best of his career. What’s missing? His command.

Hellickson has allowed a scary 1.6 HR/9 and 23% line drive percentage as he just keeps missing with his fastball and other pitches. Known for his ability to locate his pitches right on the edges of the zone, Hellickson has somehow lost that on his fastball, allowing nearly three times as many flyballs than groundballs on his fastball, the worst mark of his career. On his changeup, it has been very good overall, but he is making mistakes with it and allowing too much hard contact as he’s relying on it too much knowing he can’t locate his fastball. Hellickson’s batting average on balls in play this year is .287, right around league average, after registering at .224 and .264 the last two years, and that could be viewed as regression to the mean. It’s not–Hellickson is just failing to execute his pitches consistently enough, leading to hard contact. It has little to do with luck.

How can Hellickson fix this? He just has to find a way to get his fastball command back on track to set up his entire repertoire, and his home run and line drive rates will go down along with his ERA. His pitches are moving as dynamically as ever and he’s throwing them for strikes, and now he just has to do a better job spotting them down in the zone and on the corners to beat major league hitters on a more regular basis. His entire career, Hellickson’s command has been one of the reasons he has stood out as a pitcher. If he can just return to that, he will absolutely fine. And if he can get his command back on track, that career year we were talking about above may just be in the works.

Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay Rays Learn to Appreciate Yunel Escobar

Robbie Knopf — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:40:23 +0000

With two outs, two runners on, and the tying run at the plate for the Toronto Blue Jays, Alex Cobb forced Adam Lind to hit the ball on the ground, but Rays fans were still quite nervous when the ball came off the bat. It seemed like Lind could not have hit the ball to a better spot as he hit the ball just towards the right of second base and that the ball was going to go through for an RBI single. However, Yunel Escobar was positioned well enough that he could snag the ball on a dive, and he rose and fired to beat Lind by half a step and get Cobb out of the inning. It was a perfect analogy for what the last five weeks have been for Escobar in a Rays uniform: the Rays have gotten him in the right situation, and Escobar’s ability has done the rest.

Everywhere he has gone, Yunel Escobar has developed a reputation as an enigmatic personality that had the talent to be great but whose maturity issues would prevent him from ever getting there. That is probably true to an extent, but the more you see Escobar, the more you realize that maybe he isn’t so much more high-maintenance and maybe is just a little different. That especially came to the light after Escobar made a “safe” gesture with his hands following his two-run home run in the 9th inning of Monday’s game. Immediately after the game ended, Joe Maddon had this to say.

“I still want to talk to him about the reaction after the home run. And I’m certain you’re not going to see that again.”

Maddon wasn’t necessarily angry at Escobar, but he felt that the gesture was wrong and something that he should try to make sure Escobar knows he shouldn’t do. But after actually talking to Escobar, Maddon completely changed course.

“Some people point to the sky, he shows a safe sign,” Maddon said. “For me I love the way he is. I want him to remain the way he is. He did nothing wrong. … People that want to say that he did, that’s a fabrication on somebody’s part based on your own personal judgments, period.”

Why did Maddon have the sudden change of heart? Clearly he learned the nature of the gesture when he talked to Escobar, but why did he have to emerge so positive about it? In a usual situation, wouldn’t you see the manager describe what happened as “a misunderstanding that he’ll try to work on moving forward?” As Maddon met with Escobar, he realized that he was dealing with a completely different type of personality and that he had to support him in an atypical way.

Yunel Escobar is 30 years old. How could he still have maturity problems? Why do we keep making excuses for him when he’s certainly at an age when he should be able to fend for himself? The reason is that what’s perceived as Escobar’s immaturity is really the youthful exuberance that makes him as good as he can be. It’s his enthusiasm that ties his entire game together and gives him the extra push he needs. Joe Maddon’s job as manager is to get Escobar relaxed when he’s slumping and to prevent him from taking his emotions too far, but when he’s going strong and keeping his actions within reason, Maddon’s best move is to just leave him be and even encourage him.

In the first 17 games of the season, Yunel Escobar was terrible, managing just a .119/.200/.153 line with 2 doubles, no homers, and 3 RBI in 66 plate appearances. He was doing nothing at the plate and he was taking his frustration into the field, struggling almost as mightily at shortstop as he was in the batter’s box. But ever since then, Escobar has completely turned his season around. In his last 23 games and 87 plate appearances, Escobar has a .291/.349/.519 line with 6 doubles, 4 homers, and 14 RBI. His defense has been incredibly impressive as well and maybe never more than on Tuesday, when he made the great diving stop in the 6th before leaping over the incoming runner to complete a huge inning-ending double play in the 8th. Escobar is still hitting just .217, but for the past five weeks, he has been exactly the player the Rays knew he was capable of being when they acquired him from the Miami Marlins. And with Escobar playing so well, Joe Maddon and the Rays don’t want him to change a thing.

When Yunel Escobar is struggling, it’s so easy to chastise him for his personality. Escobar sometimes gets too emotional and causes himself to become unsettled, and that can a short slump into extended frustration. So ubiquitously ignored, though, is all the benefits Escobar’s enthusiasm have to his game when things are going well and how intrinsic Escobar’s emotions are to him as a person on and off the field. Yunel Escobar sticks out of the crowd, but that doesn’t mean he can be as good as everyone else and maybe even better. That doesn’t mean that Escobar should have free reign to do whatever he wants–we saw last year how he put the gay slur on his eye black–and Joe Maddon understands that. His reaction following the home run was an attempt to make sure that Escobar didn’t go too far again but he soon realized that he was seeing the situation in the wrong light. The job of Joe Maddon and the Rays clubhouse is to keep Escobar in his comfort zone and prevent him from getting too down or excessively excited. And if they can continue to do that, they could have themselves a very talented shortstop and quite possibly the best their franchise has ever had to this point.

Game 45: Desmond Jennings And Kelly Johnson’s Homers And Defense Help Rays Win 4-3

Jenna West — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:22:04 +0000

Evan Longoria extended his career-high hitting streak to 15 games as the Rays beat the Toronto Blue Jays in a 4-3 victory on Tuesday night.

The Rays are known for their defense, and Kelly Johnson reminded everyone of this in the first inning as he threw the ball from deep left field to second baseman Ben Zobrist to get out Edwin Encarnacion. Longoria started the Rays’ offensive action as he scored their first run of the night, followed by Johnson’s solo shot to center field off of Toronto pitcher Ramon Ortiz during the second inning. Also during the inning, center fielder Desmond Jennings made a remarkable catch facing the wall in center field to get out Adam Lind. Jennings went on to keep the Rays’ action alive at the plate as hit a leadoff home run in the third inning.

Toronto answered to the Rays’ two homers as Colby Rasmus hit a long ball to right field off of Alex Cobb in the fifth inning. Unfortunately for Cobb, he struggled in the next inning while giving up a single and a walk. Shortstop Yunel Escobar was able to help Cobb escape the inning with a diving catch from behind second base and made the throw to first base to get the final out.

At the beginning of the seventh inning, right fielder Matt Joyce left the game with right hamstring soreness, and Ryan Roberts entered the game for Joyce at second base and Zobrist moved to right field. Alex Cobb left the game after pitching 6.1 innings and only throwing two strikeouts. Although Cobb has had stronger games in the past, he was able to force groundballs several times to get outs and deliver another fine performance for the Rays, extending his record to 5-2.

It turned out to be a scary eighth inning for Rays reliever Joel Peralta, as Toronto was able to load the bases after Adam Lind reached first base on a throwing error by Roberts. The Rays brought in Fernando Rodney after the play to relieve Peralta, and Roberts quickly redeemed himself with a sharp double play to get the inning’s final out. However, Rodney faced his own problems in the ninth as Rasmus scored again for Toronto after Rodney’s wild pitch to Munenori Kawasaki.

Kelly Johnson continued to impress fans as he went 1-for-3 with 1 RBI in Tuesday night’s game. Although Johnson is not an everyday player, he leads the American League in outfield assists with 5.

Overall, the Rays’ pitching staff was low on strikeouts Tuesday night, with only 6 K’s, while Toronto’s pitchers were held at 5 strikeouts. Once again, the Rays’ defense proved to be the biggest weapon in their arsenal as they pulled out the win with the help of several dazzling plays defensively.