Shintaro Fujinami has ‘electric stuff,’ Rays hitters say. But will he throw enough strikes to bolster the Orioles’ bullpen? – The Denver Post

Tampa Bay Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe didn’t want to complicate something simple.

The six-year veteran faced Shintaro Fujinami three times when the Rays hosted the Oakland Athletics in early April. Like all of his starts to begin his MLB career, Fujinami showed flashes of the plus stuff that made him an intriguing pitcher out of Japan, but he was inconsistent and struggled mightily with his command.

Fujinami allowed five runs in 4 1/3 innings in that game, but that didn’t diminish Lowe’s impression of the 6-foot-6 right-hander.

“I mean, he throws a 95 mph splitter and a 100 mph fastball,” Lowe said. “I don’t really think there’s a whole lot more I need to add onto that.”

That pairing is what intrigued the Orioles enough to make Fujinami the first in-season major leaguer for whom they’ve given up a prospect to acquire in executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias’ five seasons. With nine days until the Aug. 1 trade deadline, Fujinami was the first — and possibly only — addition Baltimore made as it prepares for a stretch run as the American League’s best team.

Fujinami’s first two outings with the Orioles on Friday and Saturday displayed the good, the bad and the ugly of the type of volatile pitcher they have added to their bullpen. He averaged over 100 mph and topped out at 101.5 mph with his fastball in both appearances. He generated six whiffs on 16 swings, striking out Wander Franco and Harold Ramirez, both on splitters.

While the number on the radar gun is awe-inspiring, his fastball still needs to be located to avoid being hit hard, as evidenced by the solo home run Jose Siri hit on the first pitch of Fujinami’s Orioles career. And the most concerning aspect of Fujinami’s first weekend as an Oriole was his control issues Saturday, as he walked the first two batters of the eighth, threw just nine of his 24 pitches for strikes and surrendered two runs to allow the Rays to tie a game Baltimore later won, 6-5.

“When he throws strikes, he’s tough to hit,” said Orioles catcher James McCann, who caught Fujinami’s bullpen before Friday’s game and his outing Saturday.

Lowe, a former standout at the University of Maryland, is among several Rays hitters who have faced Fujinami multiple times. While it’s his first in MLB, Fujinami has already pitched against Tampa Bay four times this season. The first two came with the Athletics, including as a one-inning opener in June after he’d been converted to a reliever, and the past two with the Orioles.

Lowe went up against Fujinami three times in that April start, lining out to center field and walking twice as the 29-year-old began to unravel. In 51 innings, Fujinami has issued 32 free passes for a walk rate that is 58% higher than league average.

“Make him throw strikes,” Lowe said of the strategy against a pitcher like Fujinami. “The biggest thing is to make sure you’re not helping him out. Make sure he’s coming to you and that you’re not expanding the zone.”

In recent years, the Orioles have developed a solid track record of taking talented pitchers with command issues and turning their careers around. Félix Bautista was in High-A to begin the 2021 season and walked nearly 13% of batters in his minor league career, a rate that’s down more than three percentage points as a big leaguer. Cionel Pérez has struggled this season, but last year he was one of Baltimore’s top relievers by almost cutting his walk rate in half. Yennier Cano came to the Orioles last summer from the Minnesota Twins in the Jorge López trade, and his walk rate went from 16.5% in 2022 to 3.4% this season.

Orioles pitching coach Chris Holt said the process to fix a pitcher’s command issues is different with each one, but he did provide basic tenets that are universal.

“A couple of things that are general bullet points would be: No. 1, is there something delivery related that can be more consistent, whether it’s body control or timing?” he said. “No. 2, targeting for certain pitches to certain locations, whether that’s the catcher or visually targeting. And No. 3, just setting the goal for attacking through the zone and forcing hitters to swing the bat.”

That last point — that being aggressive begets positive results — is one that Rays slugger Luke Raley said is top of mind when he’s facing a pitcher deemed to have poor control.

“You turn down the aggressiveness,” Raley said. “But you also don’t want to take good pitches to hit. It’s one of those things with guys that throw hard, sometimes you make bad decisions. You’ve got to make your decision quick, so there’s definitely an effectively wild kind of aspect there where he throws so hard, you’ve got to make a decision early.”

Whether Fujinami is, indeed, “effectively wild” depends on, well, whether or not he’s actually effective. In his 18 1/3 innings before the trade, he posted a 2.45 ERA with 19 strikeouts versus just six walks. But on the season, he owns an 8.82 ERA and 1.69 WHIP; since Oakland moved him to the bullpen in late April, those numbers fall to 6.50 and 1.53.

Holt said Fujinami’s “unpredictability,” on top of his plus stuff, is what can make him effective.

“If he’s commanding his pitches and is improving his zone percentage but also can mix his speeds and mix his pitch types, he can remain unpredictable with improved command,” Holt said. “He’s shown already this season out of the bullpen that he’s capable of getting both left-handed batters and right-handed batters out. The immediate goal is for him to come in here and do what he’s really good at and go do it a bunch. We’re not looking to, say, fix him as much as have him be consistent at what he’s good at.”

So what is Fujinami good at? Throwing heaters and splitters. Over the past two months, he’s trimmed down his pitch arsenal from more than five offerings to almost exclusively those two, while also mixing in some sweepers and a few cutters.

“He’s got some electric stuff,” Raley said. “He’s obviously got a good fastball, and his splitter plays really well off that.”

If the fastball-splitter combination sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same one Bautista sports. While both have near-triple-digit heaters and splitters that can be devastating, the underlying metrics of those pitches are far different. Bautista’s splitter is 11 mph slower than his four-seamer, while Fujinami’s is just 5.5 mph slower. And due to his arm slot and ability to spin the ball, Bautista’s fastball has much less vertical drop, while Fujinami’s moves more horizontally but has much less backspin.

Another difference is that Bautista has mastered what makes him effective in his second season to become perhaps the majors’ most dominant reliever, while Fujinami is still waiting for his big league breakthrough after pitching the first 10 years of his professional career in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

The Orioles are hoping the pitcher he was at the end of his tenure with the Athletics is who he’ll be for them down the stretch — or maybe even better. Bullpen help was Baltimore’s most glaring need going into the deadline, and Fujinami has the potential to be another high-leverage reliever at manager Brandon Hyde’s disposal.

After getting his feet wet Friday with the Orioles trailing 2-0, Hyde went with his newest arm in a tight game Saturday rather than asking Cano to pitch another inning. While it didn’t go well, it won’t be Fujinami’s last appearance in a high-leverage spot.

“His stuff is great,” Hyde said after the game. “He’s going to be a huge help to us.”

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