Kikuchi gets 'ton of credit' for saving bullpen

SEATTLE -- Yusei Kikuchi delivered another decent start and gave the Mariners six innings on a day that they needed length. But the left-hander couldn’t overcome a difficult first two innings, not on a night when former No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize was living up to his lofty prospect billing.

Seattle had just four hits and went quietly in a 4-1 loss at T-Mobile Park to open a three-game series against Detroit. Mize made just one notable mistake, a 2-0 hanging fastball that Tom Murphy crushed for his fourth homer, but that came with no runners on and not until the eighth inning.

After retiring his first two hitters in the first, Kikuchi wound up allowing his next three batters to reach, including two walks. Then he gave up a leadoff homer to Eric Haase in the second and another big fly to Jonathan Schoop before finally settling in. He needed 50 pitches to get through those first two frames, which made it seem like he was shaping up for a short night.

But the third-year big leaguer rebounded to get through six, and he retired 11 in a row at one point, with five strikeouts in that span and eight total. That proved to be big on a night when most of the Mariners’ bullpen was unavailable after Sunday’s seven-pitcher bullpen game.

“In the past, there’s no chance,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said when asked if Kikuchi would’ve been able to pitch his way out of a similar jam over his first two seasons. “And, quite frankly, knowing the state of our bullpen tonight, often I don't get anxious in the second inning, and I was a little anxious tonight because I didn't quite know where we're going. So a ton of credit to him tonight for hanging in there.”

In that context, Monday proved to be yet another growing experience for Kikuchi, who has a 4.32 ERA and a 25.6% strikeout rate through his first eight starts, over which he’s averaging more than six innings per outing. He’s already exceeded his 47 innings total over nine starts from 2020 and is on a much more voluminous pace than '19, when he averaged right around five frames per outing.

That’s because Kikuchi was able to pitch through his challenges when he didn’t possess any command early on his best pitch, the cutter. He then relied much more on a fastball-changeup tandem that proved to be effective, even for how unfamiliar that combination has been for him.

“Because I didn't have my cutter today, I think I was able to kind of adjust and mix in my other secondary pitches with my fastball there,” Kikuchi said through an interpreter. “And I realized after the second inning, my pitch count was getting up there. But again, my goal was to go deep into this ballgame, at least six innings, and I was able to do that by making some adjustments.”

Kikuchi threw 14 changeups, all to right-handed hitters and all in get-me-out counts. The two at-bats that ended on the offering were both outs to Wilson Ramos. Opposing hitters are now just 2-for-19 against Kikuchi’s changeup, per Statcast, with a 48.1% swing-and-miss rate.

The changeup is a pitch that he’s honed in on more with former Mariners All-Star and current special assignment coach Hisashi Iwakuma, though it’s not a pitch that he plans to turn to regularly, but rather to use as an extra weapon against righties.

“It's been huge for him this year, it truly has,” Murphy said. “It's a pitch that moves in the exact opposite direction of everything else he has. And when you can do that as a pitcher, you just add a little another tool to your toolbox.”

After a productive weekend at the plate, the Mariners’ bats couldn’t get much going against Mize, who before Murphy’s homer, only had one runner reach scoring position: leadoff hitter Jarred Kelenic in the first inning. Kelnic went 1-for-4 with a single in that opening frame.

Mize was pulled after striking out two in a row following Murphy’s homer, but Tigers manager A.J. Hinch opted for the bullpen instead of letting Mize face Kelenic for the fourth time. And that relief corps, which entered Monday with an MLB-high 6.19 ERA, retired Kelenic, then gave up a leadoff single to Mitch Haniger in the ninth before quietly setting down the heart of the Mariners’ order to end the game.

“He threw strikes with all of his pitches,” Murphy said of Mize. “Any time you kind of look back on when pitchers do well, that's what you see. You see them throw strikes with three plus pitches, and that's what he did tonight. He was really aggressive in the zone, was able to keep his pitch count down.”