ARLINGTON — This is a story of two different pitchers, the surgeon-like Dr. Jack and his troublesome, wild alter ego, Mr. Leiter.
For two turns of the rotation now, Mr. Leiter has run amok.
On Tuesday, Jack Leiter fell back into the habit of throwing lots of four-seam fastballs against Kansas City. When he does, it apparently triggers some kind of reaction. Not a good one. Opponents’ bats become the devil’s tools, and the Rangers burn. Consider Tuesday’s 6-1 loss to a Kansas City team that had struggled offensively even worse than the Rangers have this season.
Leiter allowed all six runs, four of them coming on a season-high three homers.
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Then again, the Rangers have their own Jekyll and Hyde tendencies on offense. And even as they had recently built a four-game winning streak, they’d looked more undisciplined. They struck out 14 times on Tuesday, matching their season-high. They went 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position and are 6-for-44 (.136) over their last four games.
But it was still only their second loss in the last nine games. The two losses have both been started by Leiter and marred by too many fastballs. On Tuesday, Leiter threw 37 of them or 39.4% of his pitches. The last time out: He used it 39.1%.
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It’s actually the third time this season he’s eclipsed 39% with the fastball usage. For those three starts, he’s lugging around an 8.40 ERA, has issued 12 walks and four homers. In the nine others, in which he’s shown more diversity with his repertoire, he’s like a refined gentleman with a very distinguished 3.10 ERA. The good news is he’s much more often this year been the refined gentleman, but the Rangers must now embark on a quest to solve the strange case of Mr. Leiter.
Is he simply falling in love with the fastball and throwing it too often by choice? Or is he struggling to command his secondary pitches and forced to throw the fastball in fastball counts, turning him into something like a caged animal.
Allow Bruce Bochy another theory.
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“Oh, the usage was fine,” Bochy said rather bluntly. “It’s where you put it.
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“He just didn’t have command of all his pitches, the fastball included, and made some mistakes in the zone, as well as missing pretty big at times. The stuff was there. The command was off.”
In the first inning Tuesday, Leiter threw 12 four-seamers, eight of them for strikes. But Bobby Witt Jr. clubbed the one he saw for a double and Maikel Garcia lined one for a single on a 3-1 pitch.
When Leiter threw four straight fastballs to Salvador Perez, the fourth left the ballpark to give Kansas City a 3-0 lead. It should be at least noted that, based on his statistical profile this season, Perez had caused very little damage on the pitch. He had just a .292 slugging percentage.
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“He made some mistakes in the heart of the plate,” Bochy said. “The homer, he didn’t get that fastball where he wanted it. It was down the middle. So, yeah, the fastball is fine. As long as you locate it.”
It was the first of season-high three homers he allowed. Witt hit a changeup for another in the fifth and Perez, after getting ahead 2-0 on sliders in the dirt, homered on a third slider. But Perez also doubled home a run in between homers on yet another fastball, the fifth he saw in a six-pitch plate appearance. Leiter began the at-bat with three fastballs that missed, according to umpire Gabe Morales, though had replay review been allowed, the at-bat might have looked different. It appeared the first pitch caught the top of the zone.
Leiter said Kansas City seemed to be on the attack against his fastball early and the Royals were able to flip the script when he started using his offspeed stuff more heavily.
“I just didn’t make pitches,” Leiter said. “When you have to make pitches in big counts against the guys in the lineup that can hurt you, you have to do it. And I just didn’t do it. I don’t think there is one exact thing, but the last couple times, results didn’t go my way and I’m going to figure it out.”
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This particular start might have featured something of a boomerang effect for Leiter. He said being “more competitive in the zone” with offspeed pitches was a big focus after his last start. But when he missed “they made me pay.”
A year ago, as Leiter broke into the majors, he relied too heavily on the fastball, throwing it over 50 percent of the time. He was both too wild with it and had to throw it in fastball counts, which led to hitters batting .350 against the pitch.
This season, he’s infused his repertoire with a sinker and a changeup to complement the fastball and slider. The fastball usage for the season has dropped to 30%. It seem to play better when he wants to throw it, instead of when he has to throw it.
On Tuesday, he fell back into an old pattern. And the results were ugly. Time to put Mr. Leiter back into the bottle.
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Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant
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