Stroman remains enigmatic as rough start to season continues

TORONTO — Anyone who thinks they know exactly what’s wrong with Marcus Stroman is deluding themselves.

Prior to yet another rough outing on Friday night, even Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons admitted he didn’t have much insight on why his top starter is carrying an ERA closer to nine than three.

“I have no idea,” he said. “The stuff is good, the stuff’s not down at all.”

Gibbons is right and wrong there. The stuff is still good, but it doesn’t seem to be quite what Stroman was working with last year. The right-hander’s velocity does appear to be down just over 1 mph, meaning he’s sitting more 92-93 than 93-94.

That’s not drastic enough to explain what’s happened, though. Stroman will leave April with an 8.88 ERA, an absurd number for a starter of his talents. ERA can be a flawed metric and perhaps his 4.52 FIP is more reflective of where he’s at, but even so, that’s not a good number for Stroman.

Other than his velocity, perhaps the right-hander’s biggest early-season worry has been his control. Coming into Friday’s game, his Zone Percentage of 37.0 was 115th of 120 pitchers who’ve thrown at least 20 innings. Some pitchers, like Patrick Corbin, have excelled avoiding the zone and getting players to chase, but that’s not Stroman’s game. His zone rate has declined along with his swing rate against, and particularly his outside-the-zone swing rate. That’s a nasty cocktail that’s led to a 5.33 BB/9.

With that in mind, it’s easy to chalk Stroman’s struggles up to a cycle wherein he’s throwing less strikes and hitters are in turn being more patient with him, driving up pitch counts and putting men on base. There is certainly something to that, but it just so happens that had nothing to do with what happened Friday.

For the fifth straight start, Stroman couldn’t last six innings and gave up more than four runs, but it wasn’t exactly the same story. The 26-year-old walked just one hitter and pounded the zone all night:

There were definitely some mistakes made there — two-seamers left up and breaking balls not near enough to the plate to be effective — but this is not the pitch plot of a wild pitcher.

“I was better, I was better overall, but just not good enough over the course of six innings,” he said. “I’ve just got to be better, there’s no other way to put it. And I will be.”

Instead of a lack of control getting Stroman, a rather unimpressive lineup just hit him hard to the tune of six earned runs over 5.1 innings pitched. Joey Gallo had the biggest hit with a two-run home run that exploded off the bat at 110.3 mph.

To be fair to Stroman, it didn’t come on that bad a pitch in the low-and-outside quadrant of the strike zone, but it was one of eight knocks on the day he gave up. There were a couple of cheap ones, but a number of hard-hit balls as well. By the time his day was done, Stroman had allowed five 105+ mph knocks.

That’s another pattern that’s been consistent with him this year — he’s been hit hard. His .354 BABIP against may seem like bad luck, but he came into Friday’s game allowing the fifth-highest average exit velocity in the game at 94.2 mph. On fly balls and line drives that jumps to 99.0 mph, the second worst mark in baseball. In other words, hitters have been making contact against him this year like they’re all Cody Bellinger clones and Friday’s work did little to change that.

Right now, just about everything that can go wrong is going wrong with Stroman. His stuff looks a little off — perhaps due to an injury-interrupted spring training. He’s having difficulty finding the zone, and when he does he’s getting hit around. It’s impossible to pin down exactly what the main culprit is.

That makes it harder to see how Stroman corrects from here, but you can bet he will. So long as he’s healthy, he’s too good to struggle like this. He knows how to throw strikes, he’s still getting his ground balls, and his strikeouts are actually up thanks to a more simplified slider-heavy pitch mix.

“We know how good he is,” Justin Smoak said of his starter. “He knows how good he is. I don’t think there are any worries there.”

Whether things will come together for him next start, the start after, or a couple weeks from now is impossible to say, but Stroman is completely confident righting the ship is just a matter of time.

“I just need to connect a few things in my delivery, get a few things in sync and I’ll be there. I know I’m close, but I’m not there yet and that’s why it’s frustrating.”