Ragans has struggled with locating his pitches during his recent rough stretch
The Kansas City Royals just took two of three games against the St Louis Cardinals thanks to some strong offensive showings, which we haven’t been able to say very much this year. It was good to see the hitters pick up the pitchers for a change; it’s a long season, and good teams will be able to win both on the strength of their pitching and hitting.
Royals starter Cole Ragans needed the help last night as he had a rough return to the mound in the second game of Thursday’s double header. In his first start back from IL, Ragans only threw three innings, giving up five runs on five hits, including a two-run homer. The southpaw did strike out four batters, but walked three as well.
It’s been a disappointing run of starts for Ragans. In five of his last six starts, Ragans has allowed at least four runs and has not pitched more than five innings in any appearance. Ragans allowed one home run in his first four starts of the year, but has given up four bombs over his next six. The lefty only issued four walks in his first four starts, but has issued 12 free passes since his struggles started on April 18th against the Detroit Tigers.
The Royals ace is aware of his issues; his April 18th quote to KC Star beat writer Jaylon Thompson about his first start in this tough stretch is frank and diagnosis his problem that night pretty clearly:
“Not good,” Ragans said. “I didn’t command the baseball very well. Left a lot of breaking balls arm side and didn’t get ahead as well as I have been in the past. Made some good pitches at times and they put good swings on them. But overall, I just fell behind a lot of guys.”
Unfortunately for Ragans, a lot of what he said back in April still applies to what we saw last night against the Cardinals. Ragans is battling his command, his ability to locate his pitches exactly where he wants them. Looking at the Statcast pitch chart from his most recent outing shows a pitcher who is struggling with his feel on his pitches:
Ragans threw 78 pitches and only 35 of those pitches end up in the strike zone; that’s 45% of his pitches, which is 6% below his season average. Not only did Ragans not throw as many strikes as he normally does, a lot of his pitches overall are just not competitive, particularly his four seam fastball. Many are way up and either outside to a lefty or inside to a righty, which makes those pitches unlikely to be chased at by opposing hitters.
Ragans’ fastball usage last night is another indicator the he didn’t have great feel for his stuff. Ragans threw 43 four-seam fastballs out of 78 pitches, 55% of his offerings. For the season, just 48% of his pitches have been four seam fastballs. The southpaw is better when he can get ahead in the count and use his variety of breaking stuff to punch batters out, but against the Cardinals Ragans was falling behind hitters and throwing more fastballs as a result.
Ragans average fastball velocity was down yesterday 1.1 mph compared to his season average. His fastball velocity is something to watch moving forward as we try to diagnose why it was down. He might have taken something off his pitches in an effort to locate them better. He could be trying to generate a little less velocity and pressure on his legs after battling groin injuries to start the year. Ragans could also not yet be 100% healthy yet, which would be discouraging since he just returned from an IL stint.
Comparing Ragans pitch chart from Thursday night’s to his one against the Chicago White Sox on May 5th, his only strong start out his previous six, shows the difference between where the lefty wants to locate his pitches versus where he actually located them against St Louis.
For the most part against the White Sox, Ragans located his fastball up and his breaking stuff down. He also lived in and around the zone, and his pitches that were outside the zone were much closer to to the strike zone in comparison to his most recent start. This shows that he had good command of his pitches in that start against Chicago; Ragans was chasing weak contact and strikeouts with those pitches just outside the zone and he achieved his goal that time, recording 11 strikeouts in just five innings.
There’s good reasons to be bullish on Ragans figuring it out. His expected stats indicate that he’s pitched better overall than his 5.18 ERA. His 2.40 FIP and 2.59 xERA show that he’s still a great pitcher with great stuff, and his .382 BABIP and 62.1% LOB show that he’s been the victim of some unfortunate batted ball variance and timely hitting that we have good reason to expect will even out some over the course of the year.
You do make some of your own luck as a pitcher, and Ragans most recent start shows that we can’t just say Ragans issues are all bad luck and if he keeps going on exactly how he’s been it will be fine. I’m not smart enough to know what adjustments the Royals ace needs to make to how he’s pitching to get back to locating his pitches better, but I believe that Ragans, as well as Brian Sweeney and the Royals pitching apparatus know what they are doing and are working hard to get they lefty back to his dominant self. The Royals need the dominant Ragans to achieve their goals this season, and Ragans will have to command his stuff better to get back to that version of himself.