Will the Toronto Blue Jays recruit a starting pitcher from outside? While the prospects of the local media were mixed, a pitcher with a flexible position threw well.
Yusei Kikuchi (32) started the 2023 major league away game against the Los Angeles Dodgers held at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, USA on the 27th (hereinafter Korean time), and won 8 wins (3 losses) of the season with 6 innings, 7 hits, 8 strikeouts, 2 walks and 1 run.바카라
Toronto agreed on a trade that day to send right-hander Trent Thornton to the Seattle Mariners and acquire infielder Mason McCoy. General manager Ross Atkins announced the recruitment of a starting pitcher earlier this month, but there has been no result so far.
The views of the Toronto starting lineup in the US and Canadian media are sharply divided. If Ryu Hyun-jin returns and Alec Manoa revives, the argument that there is no need to trade starting pitchers and that it is difficult to predict the performance of Ryu Hyun-jin and Manoa in the second half of the season, so the argument that starting pitchers are needed to prepare for the worst are fiercely opposed.
However, there are many prospects that even if Toronto actually recruits a starting pitcher, it will not go until the recruitment of a special ace. In fact, Lucas Giolito, the biggest player in the starting pitcher trade, moved to the Los Angeles Angels that day. Perhaps the trade rumor can be a healthy stimulus for Toronto’s existing starting pitchers.
Can a sense of crisis lead to performance? On this day, Kikuchi seemed to be like that. Kikuchi’s quality start is exactly one month after the Oakland Athletics match on June 26th. The winning pitcher is also one month after that day. As far as the day, the pitching content was quite good.
In the first inning, he struck out 1st and 2nd basers JD Martinez and Chris Taylor one after another. He mixed curves aggressively. Max Muncy induced a ground ball from second base with a slider. In the second inning, with two outs and bases loaded, he struck out Freddy Freeman with a swing again with a curveball. Of course he did a 96.5 mph four-seam. In the third inning, he struck out Martinez, Taylor, and Muncy. He also used curves and sliders a lot. In the 4th inning, the 1st out and 1st baser killed Miguel Rojas with a 95 mph four-seam shot by the shortstop.
In the 5th inning, 1st and 2nd baseman Freeman with four seams induced a shortstop double play, and Martinez also induced a floating ball in right field with four seams. In the 6th inning, he threw a 94.8 mile four-seam to James Outman, 2nd out, 2nd baseman, and was hit with a left-handed hit. However, he struck out Rojas with a slider on a swing.
He took 155 km, but made a good pitch, having more fun with an off-speed pitch. Compared to last year, his ups and downs in the 1st pitch have clearly improved. He also strengthened his stability with a pitch that does not depend only on speed. It is true that Ryu Hyun-jin has already announced a return, and Kikuchi’s position will be shaken if a new starting pitcher joins through a trade. In that respect, Kikuchi once again showed his competitiveness to the outside world on this day. 8 wins for the first time since his 2019 debut. The first 10 wins of his career are also seen.