{"id":70391,"date":"2024-04-11T13:09:10","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T17:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=70391"},"modified":"2024-04-11T13:09:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T17:09:10","slug":"jordan-hicks-starting-pitcher-role-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/11\/jordan-hicks-starting-pitcher-role-giants\/","title":{"rendered":"SF Giants Pitcher Return to a Starter&#8217;s Role Has Been a Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When the San Francisco Giants signed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hicksjo03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jordan Hicks<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/14\/jordan-hicks-san-francisco-giants\/\" target=\"_self\">this past offseason<\/a>, many thought Hicks would serve in a bullpen role. Instead, his return to a starter&#8217;s role has been one of the early success stories of 2024. As a starter, Hicks has dialled down the velocity of his ground ball-inducing sinker (95.6 mph, after it was hovering around 100 mph in relief in the past) while getting similar whiff rates with his sweeper and splitter. The transition has been a remarkable one for Hicks and the Giants with the right-hander owning a 1.00 ERA through 18 innings in three starts. The 27-year-old pitched six strong innings on Wednesday, allowing four hits and one run en route to a 7-1 victory over the Washington Nationals.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The more I watch Jordan Hicks pitch in a Giants jersey, the more he looks like he was never a Cardinal.<\/p>\n<p>98.9 on pitch 87 from Hicks would never happen in a Cardinals jersey <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VnhpuoBsKV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/VnhpuoBsKV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 nate schwartz (@_nateschwartz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_nateschwartz\/status\/1776373934511821147?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Jordan Hicks Continues Solid Run for the Giants<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Jordan Hicks, 94mph Two Seamer (17 inches of run) and Sweeper in the other batter&#8217;s box (swinging K), Overlay. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WVhiJuuT3r\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/WVhiJuuT3r<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PitchingNinja\/status\/1778155116450779248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 10, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s go back to 2022 when Hicks converted from relieving to starting for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a less-than-ideal switch for Hicks, who struggled mightily. In eight starts, he threw a combined 26 1\/3 innings with a 5.47 ERA. He walked about 20 percent of the batters he faced, barely getting strikeouts against opponents. The short-lived experiment saw Hicks return to late-inning duties in the bullpen. But when the discussions of Hicks returning to a starting role emerged, many thought it wasn&#8217;t going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Really, really good starts, every one of them,&#8221; said Giants manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/melvibo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-11_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bob Melvin<\/a>. &#8220;It&#8217;s more just the mindset than anything else. He wants to go out there and give us innings. That mindset has worked really well for him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>One Weakness Holding Hicks Back<\/h3>\n<p>What&#8217;s holding Hicks back from the rotation in previous seasons was his performance against left-handed and right-handed batters. Between 2021-23, Hicks had a 23 percent strikeout rate while walking batters at a 15 percent clip against lefties. On the other hand, he has a 27 percent strikeout rate with a 12 percent walk rate against righties. Hicks was more dominant against right-handers but he has improved against lefties. In the past, Hicks tried a variety of pitches to handle lefties. He toiled with a changeup but never threw it more than 5 percent of the time. He tried using the cutter and has taken velocity off his slider and tried to throw it like a curveball. None of these pitches worked for Hicks.<\/p>\n<h3>Hicks Relied Heavily on Fastballs<\/h3>\n<p>Hicks leaned on his four-seam fastball and sinker against lefties in 2023. He threw them close to 80 percent of the time while mixing in a slider. Using his splitter improves Hicks&#8217;s chances against left-handed hitters because it gives him an off-speed option. Altogether, he&#8217;s reduced the usage of his four-seam and slider in favor of the sinker\/splitter combination. All of these changes and improvements of Hicks&#8217;s game is a positive one. The Giants like what they&#8217;ve seen in him and Hicks like where he&#8217;s at and the fact that he can fulfill a starting role in the rotation.<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen how his arm will handle the workload throughout the season. However, he&#8217;s a must-start for the Giants, especially if he can find a rhythm with his sweeper\/slider.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: \u00a9 Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the San Francisco Giants signed Jordan Hicks this past offseason, many thought Hicks would serve in a bullpen role. Instead, his return to a starter&#8217;s role has been one of the early success stories of 2024. As a starter, Hicks has dialled down the velocity of his ground ball-inducing sinker (95.6 mph, after it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":70393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31,1071],"tags":[2223,2601,168,38],"class_list":["post-70391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-giants","category-mlb","tag-bob-melvin","tag-jordan-hicks","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-washington-nationals"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}