Blue Jays' Yusei Kikuchi Flourishing With Robbie Ray’s Two-Pitch Model

TORONTO – Blue Jays starter Yusei Kikuchi is still relatively new to Toronto, but he’s already drawing comparisons to a superstar performer from just a year ago.

The Blue Jays have modified Kikuchi’s delivery and toyed with his pitch mix, and they have good reasons for that. Toronto did the same thing last season with Robbie Ray—who’s now a member of the visiting Mariners—and that turned out alright.

“I was just talking about Robbie Ray,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said as reporters crammed into his office before Monday’s 6-2 win. “He did it, so Kikuchi’s doing the same thing.”

In 2021, Ray trimmed himself into a two-pitch pitcher, weaponizing the fastball-slider combo to strike out a league-leading 248 batters, coasting to an AL-best 2.84 ERA, and picking up a Cy Young award in the process.

At the Blue Jays’ behest, Kikuchi is headed towards that Ray-esque model by developing a breaking pitch he’ll throw nearly as frequently as his fastball. And that pitch has already generated an interesting nickname around baseball.

“[Kikuchi’s] still got the really good fastball you see at 95 [mph], 96,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “And whatever you want to call it, a slider-cutter. Our guys call it a ‘slutter;’ It's a little bit in between.”

Kikuchi said he called the pitch a “bitter"—a mishmash word for “big cutter.” Together, Kikuchi and pitching coach Pete Walker cooked up this harder breaking ball using a pretty good role model. 

“I was definitely aware how closely Pete worked with Robbie Ray,” Kikuchi said. “And we've actually sat down a couple times, going over my pitch shapes, pitch arsenal, and it seemed relatively close to or similar to Robbie Ray’s stuff.

“And so especially that slider, the new slider, I’ve played around with the grips a little bit, but just creating that similar shape as Robbie Ray was the goal to creating this new slider.”

But the split changeup isn’t completely lost either. Kikuchi tossed that offspeed seven times, mostly to right-handed-hitters, and it worked beautifully. At one point, during a breeze of a third inning, Kikuchi used a change to whiff Seattle’s Dylan Moore, who dropped his helmet in frustration and started to undo his batting gloves despite being just the second out of the inning.

Monday was Kikuchi’s first look at his old team, too. After leaving Japan, the 30-year-old played his first three MLB seasons with the Mariners, which, in theory, should’ve given Seattle an advantage since the organization knows his stuff so well.

“He’s no different than a lot of other guys,” Servais said. “Yusei can get going along and he can rattle off three or four very dominant innings. You gotta grind him, just like any pitcher.”

The Mariners grinded him—they worked three walks and didn’t interrupt Kikuchi’s misses early in the count—but they couldn’t hit him. Seattle's first hit of the game came on a Jesse Winker double in the fifth inning. Other than that, nothing.

Kikuchi wasn’t especially dominant with his stuff or his location Monday, yet he still managed to limit the Mariners to only three hard-hit balls through six innings of work with six strikeouts. The pitch percentage totals indicated he stuck to the plan, too—64% fastball, 28% slider, and 8% changeup.

It was a rocky start to the 2022 season for Kikuchi, whose 5.52 ERA in April gave him a poor introduction to Blue Jays fans. That’s quickly reversed to a 1.56 ERA through three starts in May, and the changes Kikuchi has made are a big part of that.

Perhaps Toronto has truly unlocked something with Kikuchi—and perhaps his success is finally sustainable. Only time will tell.

Last season, when Ray pitched, Montoyo said he could always relax and trust his starter. Over his hot stretch, Kikuchi has now gone from giving his manager cardiac fits to providing a surprising dose of security. 

For now, we can pump the brakes on any notion Kikuchi will turn in a Cy Young campaign like Ray’s, but he’s certainly trending in the right direction lately. 

"He looks awesome," Bo Bichette said of Kikuchi. "From facing him last year, we know how good he can be. He's one of the nastier lefties that I've faced. To see him being aggressive going after hitters, I think that's huge for him."