It was unclear if highly-regarded White Sox pitching prospect Jonathan Stiever would still be a Knight today. But he was not moved at Friday’s MLB trade deadline, and took the mound tonight in Charlotte, with the possibility of a late-season call-up still alive.
Stiever responded with an encouraging effort, generating a stat line of five innings, six hits, two walks, one earned run, five strikeouts and no home runs. His breaking pitches were as good as they’ve been all season, with several swings and misses.
Unfortunately, after Stiever, the Knights’ pitching fell far short of the mark, resulting in a 10-4 loss to the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
Two important bats were out of the lineup tonight — Jake Burger and Micker Adolfo. Both were removed from Friday’s game with possible injuries. But manager Wes Helms attributed the various aches and pains to both players’ bodies reacting to the stress of a regular season after having played so little baseball in the past couple of years. They will sit again Sunday but are expected to return early in the next series.
Still, the lineup had plenty of punch, including four recent major leaguers: Luis Robert, Danny Mendick, Jake Lamb and Yermin Mercedes.
Robert had two singles and a walk. Jake Lamb, in his 12th rehab game with the Knights, is looking especially locked in this week, with a home run, double, single and walk tonight, plus three RBI. Mendick added a solo homer in his first game back in Charlotte and Mercedes went hitless.
In a game when the Knights needed help from its defense, Mercedes, playing first base tonight, missed two key plays. One was on an errant throw from Mendick, playing shortstop, that a more experienced first baseman would have had. The second happened when pitcher Nik Turley had a baserunner picked off but Mercedes dropped the ball. Both runners eventually scored.
But, as has been the case so often in the Knights’ current slide — two wins in the team’s last 20 games — the offense had little chance to keep pace with the number of runs that the bullpen was giving up. Tonight’s culprits were Turley, Will Carter, Zack Burdi and Hunter Schryver, who gave up eight earned runs over three innings on four hits, eight walks and a balk.
Pitching In A Hitter’s Ballpark
To be sure, part of the problem with the Knights’ bullpen is talent. But a lot of the difficulty is the ballpark.
The evolution of a Triple-A pitcher in Charlotte is a huge mental challenge. You can’t pitch with fear, despite having a home ballpark where routine fly balls carry so well that many frequently leave the yard.
For many Knights’ pitchers, the arrival in Charlotte is a rude awakening after honing their skills in Birmingham’s pitcher-friendly environs. There’s the added pressure of being one rung away from the major leagues and the result is often to pitch away from contact, even if the result is a base on balls — or several of them. That’s certainly been the case so far for the Knights, who haven been in the top two in the Triple-A East in walks allowed by a hefty margin.
Pitching coach Matt Zaleski is constantly pushing the staff to trust their skills and pitch to soft contact, but it is a hard sell. “I get where their heads are at because this ballpark does play small,” Zaleski said. “I have to believe that Charlotte leads the minor leagues in home runs every year. I can’t say for sure, but they must be up there in the top one or two every year. So you kind of fear contact at times.”
Analytics Tell A Different Story
Zaleski said he did research to support his instincts that the Knights are actually a good staff when they throw in the zone. “We’re pretty close to league average or above when we’re in the strike zone,” he said. “Soft contact, expected batting average, stats where you take the ballpark out of it, we’re actually doing pretty well. It is disheartening to see the amount of walks because we have a lot of guys with really good stuff that plays in the zone.”
“If we get hit around a little bit, I can live with that,” he said. “And if our stuff isn’t sharp that day, we can go work on that. If their delivery is off, we can fix that. We can work on command, something like that.”
Photo credit: Laura Wolff/Charlotte Knights
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