Milwaukee — Crossed arms and leaning on the visitor's Dougout rails, the Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker was watching enough Saturday afternoon.
Early Saturday afternoon, it was the second weekend series of middle games with Brewers.
On a dugout phone behind him, Walker went to Trent Thornton to throw a bullpen. Yusei Kikuchi's day wasn't over yet, but it may have been.
And a question to Walker, manager Charlie Montoyo, and more importantly, J's front office. How much can the team take this?
Kikuchi rotted again on Saturday and abandoned five runs in two innings as Jays counterattacked the match with a 5-4 fall to the American Family Field Brewers. .. His spots in rotation are rapidly becoming disposable, becoming an outing of hope and prayer that the attack will score enough to mitigate his potential damage.
"I'm not going to sit here and make his excuses," Montoyo later said, the true prosecution given to the manager criticized his own player. Tends to silence. "He wasn't on the pitch and put us in a tough situation today."
This wasn't the shortest outing in Japan's left-handed season, it felt like that.
And long before he threw the 69th and final pitches in the afternoon-it ended up opening three in Mike Brosseau's solo home runs-that's another day when the strike zone is foreign. It was clear that the area was.
The final score praised and proved Jaze's resilience, especially in the face of the Brewers ace Corbin Burnes.
But it was another poor outing from Kikuchi. Kikuchi is a pitcher who admits he is currently lost and is trying to find a way.
"I had a hard time going out the last few times, but most of them were commands, and I was late for the count," Kikuchi said through the team's interpreter. rice field. "The pitch when trying to get back to the count has been hit hard. Unfortunately, it's the same today."
What now?
At this point, Kikuchi looks like a perfect candidate for the mysterious injury list. Perhaps he hurt his neck when he saw the Broseau bomb soaring over his head.
I'm kidding, but I'm getting closer to the point where I can't trust sending Kikuchi every five days. In particular, overworked bullpen already has its own problems.
Given that they couldn't demote him and he believed he was the first year of a three-year $ 36 million US contract and the coach was still there. Certainly releasing him would come at a huge price, something extracted from a left-handed person who can throw a fastball at 97 mph.
They could leave him to the bullpen to organize things, but the options to replace him with rotation are not always plentiful.
To be honest, the condition of Jaze's pitching staff is far worse than most people could have predicted at the beginning of the season. Kikuchi was always going to be a project, but not all the work before he started to sharpen under his command was sharpening him.
He was unable to pitch 5 times in each of the last 4 starts.
On the other hand, he is not necessarily the answer to Jaze's pain, but Max Castillo showed something a little to the team's mind. In four innings of the shutout, Castillo hit a seven and he allowed only one hit, at least while opening up the possibility of Jaze's comeback.
"That was a good impression of what he did today," Montoyo said of Castillo. "People have to show you that they can market at this level, and that's what he did."
Castillo will certainly take a little more action, but Saturday He's not the answer yet, as he was only his second big league appearance.
And until it's done, Kikuchi's time will be an adventure.
GAME ON
Kikuchi worked from the beginning, despite retiring two of the first three Brewers batters he faced. It took 50 pitches to pass the first inning, including a mound visit from Walker and Thornton ... Standing up to work with a pen ... The second starter effort Keston Hiura reached due to a slow error Was not helped exactly by the shortstop Bo Bichette first. Kikuchi's score was still terrible, but he couldn't get the three runs that Brewers scored in the innings, including Andrew McCutchen's home run pair ... Burns, the current NL Cy Young Award winner in 7.2 innings. , 5 hits and Jaze got on the board with 2 runs in 5 innings. The most striking is Matt Chapman's solo home run, the 10th in the season ... When Bichette did the same on the 8th (12th), Jays pulled in within 2 runs, reached within 1 on the Chapman double, and the 9th. Lourdes Gurriel Junior Single followed.
Around the base
Jaze had no George Springer (elbow) for three consecutive games. Springer continued to practice batting, and if Gabby Moreno hadn't been frustrated to end the match, he would have hit in the ninth inning ... while catcher Alejandro Kirk picked up a bat on Friday. After taking it, the wear was not getting worse. Lineup as a designated hitter.
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