Jameson Taillon is looking for solutions.
The right-hander’s Chicago Cubs profession continues to get off to a rocky begin. This time Citizens Bank Park served because the backdrop for Taillon’s struggles. One inning doomed Taillon, a standard theme in his 4 begins since getting back from the injured listing.
A six-run first inning by the Philadelphia Phillies put the Cubs in a gap they couldn’t get well from in a 12-3 loss Saturday. Kyle Schwarber’s grand slam on a dangling curveball represented the primary blow. Taillon surrendered eight runs (six earned) in 2⅓ innings.
Through seven begins, Taillon, who signed a four-year, $68 million contract in December, owns an 8.10 ERA. Taillon mentioned he bodily feels nice with no lingering points from his groin pressure. Reoccurring struggles to place away hitters and inconsistent command maintain placing Taillon in a foul spot.
“I have to clean it up,” Taillon mentioned. “I feel like the stuff’s there, just comes down to making the right pitch to the right area. And right now, it feels like I’m either missing too far off the plate or too far over the middle of the plate, not finding that sweet spot there on the corners. When I need to do it, definitely not getting enough swing and miss and definitely not finishing guys, too many two-strike counts.”
On the opposite facet, Phillies ace Aaron Nola placed on a clinic pounding the zone. The Cubs struck out 10 instances and managed simply two runs on a Dansby Swanson residence run. They put solely two runners on by 5 innings. The offense’s incapacity to get going towards Nola doesn’t matter a lot when Taillon can’t get by three innings.
Taillon has pitched previous the third as soon as in 4 begins for the reason that IL stint, which got here in his final begin at Houston (4⅔ innings). Taillon believes his four-seam fastball isn’t pretty much as good as previous seasons and that he isn’t utilizing the pitch successfully. Too typically his fastball is an uncompetitive pitch.
“I really think it’s simple, it just comes down to the fact that I’m not executing right now,” Taillon mentioned. “It’s crappy, particularly being on a brand new crew and a brand new place. You wish to show that I need to be right here and I’m a great participant, and to date I haven’t had the chance to point out that in order that’s a reasonably crappy feeling.
“Obviously, when you’re pitching, you’re out there by yourself so it’s not fun. But you have no choice but to punch back and pick yourself up and find a way to punch back.”
As Kyle Hendricks nears his season debut, the Cubs (20-25) can’t afford to have their bullpen taxed each time Taillon takes the mound. The Cubs wished Hendricks to be sufficiently constructed up earlier than activating him from the IL. In his rehab begin Saturday evening for Triple-A Iowa, Hendricks constructed as much as 82 pitches whereas permitting one run in six innings. Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy wished to see Hendricks repeat a heavier workload over a number of outings.
Hendricks’ pitch depend positions him to make his season debut through the Cubs’ upcoming homestand. Javier Assad is eligible to be recalled Sunday if the Cubs need one other lengthy aid choice within the bullpen to assist Hendricks or Taillon.
“The last thing you want to do is have a guy come up, he’s not fully stretched out and going to ask a lot of our bullpen to cover behind him,” Hottovy mentioned Friday. “Hopefully everything goes well (Saturday) and he’s recovering well and everything feels good after that and we can be talking about bringing him back after that.”
Catcher Yan Gomes, who has been behind the plate for Taillon’s final two begins, mentioned they should take a few steps backward and work out the basis of the difficulty. Taillon’s profession observe file provides the Cubs a cause to imagine he’ll return it round.
“We know that he’s willing to put in the work and willing to make some adjustments if we need to,” Gomes mentioned. “If not, maybe we work a little bit of a different game plan or something like that. So at the same time, we are going to go back and just look at some stuff and make some adjustments to go forward.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com