Craig Kimbrel’s Third Appearance Yields Mixed Results

Before Saturday night’s game in Iowa, the Cubs decided to make Craig Kimbrel the “opener” as the righty made the start at Triple-A, ensuring he’d pitch on back-to-back days with the threat of rain looming. Here’s how Kimbrel did in his third appearance in the minors, as he’s nearing a return to the majors.

Kimbrel threw 14 pitches, allowed a home run, a walk and also recorded a strikeout. He was taken out after getting the second out in the first inning.

Iowa Cubs beat reporter Tommy Birch has a detailed breakdown of Kimbrel’s outing, going pitch by pitch to every batter he faced.

Out of the 14 pitches, Kimbrel threw 10 fastballs. The solo home run came on the fourth pitch of the game, which also happened to be the lowest velocity on the radar gun at 93mph.

So, Kimbrel threw one fastball at 93mph, 7 fastballs at 94mph and 2 fastballs got up to 95mph, while his curveball sat at 83-84 mph.

Kimbrel had a 2.74 ERA in 62.1 innings for the Red Sox in 2018, but it was a “down” year for his standards. His strikeout rate dipped below 14% for the first time since 2015 and his walk rate spiked up to 4.48%. Again, Kimbrel was still pretty damn good, but not as great as he was in previous years.

One of the concerns was that Kimbrel’s average fastball velocity decreased in 2018, from 98.3mph in 2014-17 to 97.5mph. It’s not much, but it do go down more than one mile per hour from 2017 to 2018. The positive is that as the year went on, Kimbrel’s fastball velocity did increase last season.

So far in his three rehab outings at Triple-A, Kimbrel’s fastball has consistently been at about 95mph. Should fans be worried that he only threw 93mph, the pitch that went for a home run Saturday night?

At this point? Not really. Maybe he just wasn’t as pumped up as usual, starting the game instead of coming in late. But yeah, if he’s up with the Cubs and on the second day of a back-to-back, he’s struggling to throw harder than in the mid-90s on the radar gun, then it should raise an eyebrow or two.

Also, consider the following from Saturday night.

After pitching Friday and Saturday nights, the Cubs will give Kimbrel Sunday and Monday off. He’ll pitch again at Triple-A Tuesday, meaning the earliest he could join the Cubs bullpen is Thursday.