Two weeks ago the Kansas City Royals had finally eclipsed the Detroit Tigers in the American League Central race and things were sure looking good for the Royals to really make a nice run as we enter the mid way and later parts of this 2014 baseball season. The Royals had been playing great baseball and winning games thanks to an outstanding starting rotation and timely hitting but without much help from their Ace, James Shields. Normally when a pitcher has a rough stretch of starts, especially for an established star like Shields, we can just assume that he would work his way out of it, however this has been nearly a two month-long struggle for James, and it doesn’t look like he is the same pitcher that he was.
Shields took the mound Tuesday night against the hapless Minnesota Twins and had his worst start of the year. He hardly got himself into the 5th inning and was sloppy all night even contributing to his mess with a gaffe in the 4th frame that ultimately got the ball rolling downhill in the wrong direction for good on this night. Shields has a terrible line against the Twins, 5 innings pitched, 9 hits, 2 walks and 5 runs against with only 5 strikeouts. The loss last night furthered the Tigers lead in the central to 4.5 games.
These are tough times for James Shields, and even though he is saying all the right things and maintaining that he feels healthy and confident during his bullpen sessions, the results are simply not there. In the last 12 games started by James, he has allowed 8.3 hits per outing and racked up a 4.77 ERA. But obviously, that doesn’t tell the whole story with Shields, lets dig a little deeper.
In the month of May, Shields saw his K/9 Rate drop to 6.25 (he has a career K/9 rate of 7.70), his WHIP climb to a 1.39 (career average – 1.23) and his slash line against skyrocket to .307/.345/.478. June was just as bad for Shields who posted a 5.17 K/9, 1.60 WHIP and opponents hit .308/.363/.574 against him. Ouch.
So what is the deal with James Shields lately? According to his pitching coach Dave Eiland-
“He’s really trying to make his pitches better than they need to be,” Eiland said. “He’s really over-manipulating. When he does that, his head goes up, he pulls his front side off and his arm drags. And balls stay up out over the plate.” Royals Manager Ned Yost offered similar statements about Shields, “He’s just not sharp right now, “He’s going through a streak, a pretty extended streak, four starts or so, where he hasn’t been exceptionally sharp.”
Shields has maintained his velocity throughout the entire season, topping out at 94 MPH, however, his location seems to have betrayed him. Shields came into the season as a career 3.80 ERA / 3.81 FIP / 3.62 xFIP pitcher and so far in 2014 he is 3.94 / 4.04 /3.69 so obviously, there is not a huge difference in numbers this year based on his career averages but the results are simply not there. James Shields has a .299 career BABIP and has seen that number jump slightly to .314 in ’14, again not earth-shattering numbers but enough to make a little difference. Another factor I noticed with Shields and his career numbers vs ’14 numbers was the spike in home run balls. Shields averaged 1.10 HR/9 and 11.5 HR/FB% over his career but has spiked a bit in ’14 at 1.16 HR/9 and 12.15 HR/FB%.
Looking at all of those numbers as a whole might explain a little bit of the reason Shields has been a little inconsistent this year, but based solely on numbers he is not that far off from his career averages. Perhaps this is just a case of the ball finding a hole in a bad situation or a hitter turning a ball off the plate into a hit off of Shields, regardless he has to be better if the Royals are going to make a strong and serious run into the postseason this year, and judging by these comments from Shields himself, he is very aware of that – “I’m not doing my job right now,” Shields said. “I know that. So that’s frustrating.” He went on to say – “It’s definitely frustrating that I’m not getting outs,“I’m letting my team down, and not getting my job done.”
In closing, when looking at all of his secondary numbers, we really don’t see a big difference based on his career numbers, the most alarming difference is in WHIP and his home runs allowed. Shields has been a little more prone to the gofer ball and one could make a same assumption that most of his home runs allowed have been back breaking or game changing. I’m a firm believer in water finding its level when it comes to baseball players and as long as Shields can regain his command in big situations he will be fine, Shields earned the nick name “Big Game James” when he was in Tampa, he will certainly need to post up a few big games for the Royals in the second half of the season.
Main Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
