Kikuchi steps up to keep options open

Starts a day early against Tampa, making him available to pitch in wild-card series next week

In one of the most unpredictable twists of the year, the Blue Jays’ Yusei Kikuchi has gone from a pitcher who couldn’t keep his spot in the starting rotation to someone whose late-season schedule has been manipulated to make sure he is available for the playoffs.

Kikuchi’s next turn through the rotation initially wasn’t scheduled until Saturday. If he had stayed on a regular routine, the 32-year-old likely would not have been able to pitch again until Wednesday or Thursday. A wild-card series might have been over by then.

So Kikuchi was the starter in the Jays’ 11-4 win over Tampa Bay on Friday night, and they now have the option of bringing Kikuchi out of the bullpen for Game 1 of a wildcard series Tuesday. There’s an outside chance he could be considered for an even bigger role in Game 2 or 3, depending on the matchup.

The switch was an easy one to make. Kikuchi started Friday on normal rest because of a team offday earlier in the week. It’s a move the Jays had been considering for awhile and it likely indicates HyunJin Ryu, who was pushed back a day to start Saturday, won’t crack the post-season roster.

“We have a lot of flexibility with starters and bullpen,” Jays manager John Schneider said Friday, before Alejandro Kirk, Matt Chapman and Brandon Belt homered in the lopsided win. “It’s regular rest for Yusei and scheduled an extra day for Ryu tomorrow. I think if things go the way we want to … it lines him up to be available a day earlier.”

There might be some who felt the Jays were getting ahead of themselves by making this decision. Even after Friday’s win, their magic number was still one pending the result of the Rangers-Mariners game. Logic suggests the focus should be what’s happening on the field that day, not what might occur next week.

But this is how baseball works, especially with starting pitchers. If

Kikuchi started Saturday, his arm would not have recovered in time to make an impact during the first round. Now he should be available for any role the Jays require.

The expected course of action will be to move Kikuchi to the bullpen, with Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and José Berríos staying in the rotation. But there’s an outside chance the Jays will put a greater emphasis on specific matchups.

For example, the Rays’ seasonlong statistics indicate there isn’t much difference in how they perform based on which arm a pitcher throws with. They have a .775 onbase-plus-slugging percentage against left-handers and .773 versus right-handers. But their winning percentage of .697 against lefties is much better than a .587 mark versus righties.

Tampa Bay has also enjoyed a lot of success against Kikuchi this sea- son. He entered Friday’s start having allowed nine runs on 21 hits in 15 innings against the Rays. He was better in the series opener, tossing five scoreless innings until the Rays scored three runs off him in the sixth, including two on a homer by Yandy Diaz. He picked up his 11th win of the season as the Jays scored in every inning from the second through the seventh.

The numbers make for a more compelling case to have Kikuchi face the Twins, who are sixth in the majors with a .758 OPS against righties and 18th with a .723 OPS against lefties. Is it enough for the Jays to give Kikuchi a start over someone like Berríos? Maybe not, but it could keep the Twins guessing for a couple days while also giving Schneider another asset to use in relief.

“We see him as a really good pitcher,” Schneider said when asked about Kikuchi’s status. “It can be in a variety of different roles once you get to the post-season, but I think you’re trying to plan out, the best you can, who you’re going to be playing without getting too far ahead of yourselves. He can do either one.”

The fact that the Jays were even debating ways to make Kikuchi available next week shows how much he has improved since last season. As a starter in 2022, Kikuchi posted a 5.25 ERA while walking more than five batters per nine innings. This year, his ERA has dropped to 3.86 while the walks are down to 2.6 per nine.

Those numbers were enough for the Jays to prioritize Kikuchi over Ryu for one of the final spots on their potential post-season roster. While Ryu’s status won’t be officially determined until early next week — if the team qualifies for the postseason — Saturday’s outing almost certainly rules him out of the first round.

An announcement like that would have seen like a twisted April fool’s joke at the beginning of last season when Ryu was still healthy and Kikuchi’s career appeared to be in shambles. A little more than a year later, it’s an entirely reasonable move to make.

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