We got a bit of a preview of the best of Robert Stephenson last Saturday after a rough beginning to the game. Over the final 4.1 innings of the game the right hander allowed one hit, had no walks and he struck out 11 batters. Before he recorded the second out of the game though he had allowed a hit, four walks and two runs though. It was a preview of what was to come the next time out.
On Friday night the former 1st round pick dominated the Mississippi Braves over the course of seven innings. Stephenson walked just one batter and allowed three hits with 10 strikeouts without allowing a run.
Stretching back to the final 4.1 innings of the last start, Stephenson has allowed four hits and a walk to go with 21 strikeouts. Over that time frame we’ve never seen a more dominant Robert Stephenson.
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Over the last year and a half, all at the Double-A level, we’ve seen Robert Stephenson struggle at times with his control. He’s walked 116 batters in 192.1 innings pitched at the level, which works out to 5.4 batters per 9 innings pitched. In no way, shape or form is that rate going to cut it. It had to improve moving forward if Stephenson was going to remain as a starter.
If you’ve read enough of my writings about Stephenson in that time I had always said that I wasn’t worried so much about the walks because I had seen the right hander at his best over a long period of time in the past be able to paint the corners at the knees with his pitches. It was a matter of finding that again.
There was a stretch for Stephenson when he was pitching in Dayton that last a month where he had five walks and 50 strikeouts over 38.2 innings and allowed just 19 hits. That’s a WHIP of 0.62 over 38.2 innings. That version of Robert Stephenson is the guy, at age 20, that I said could have gotten out big leaguers if they had been in the box against him.
The right hander from Martinez, California wasn’t just overpowering hitters with his fastball, though he was able to do so, but he was able to locate his curveball wherever he wanted as well. He would even mix in a change up at times and knew where it was going. That guy looked like a future ace. But after the start on June 8th he tweaked his hamstring between starts and missed the next month. When he came back his control wasn’t the same to the eye, even though he only walked five more batters in the next 31.0 innings between Dayton and Bakersfield.
That performance earned him a promotion in late August to Double-A where he made four starts, but walked 13 batters in 16.2 innings. More control struggles followed in the 2014 season as he walked 74 batters in 136.2 innings. There would be some dominant games mixed in at times, but there was a lot of up-and-down for the right hander as he struggled to find consistency with the strikezone, even within the same game where had it previously.
2015 began similarly with four walks in the first 11.0 innings pitched to go along with 16 strikeouts. but then things went downhill in the control department over the next four outings as he walked 18 batters in 17.2 innings. Watching the games two things stood out. First, he couldn’t locate any of his pitches with any sort of consistency and hardly ever hitting the initial target. Second was that his change up was getting better and better even if the control wasn’t showing up. He was confident in the pitch like he had never been before.
Going back a few starts Stephenson had began to talk about things he was working on with the pitching coach, trying to find something that would get him back to being able to locate his pitches. On May 18th against Jacksonville you saw glimpses of him locating the fastball right where he wanted it. The change up was a go-to pitch and he would go to the curveball, though he wasn’t really locating the pitch like he had at times in the past. The fastball command showing up at times was noticeable though and something that had eluded him for the better part of the last year.
Then the first inning of his start last Saturday happened, walking four of the first six batters he faced. It wasn’t pretty, and while he wasn’t Nuke Laloosh wild, four walks in an inning is four walks in an inning. Then something happened, something clicked, the things he had been working on all came forward and he struck out the final two batters of the first inning. He allowed one hit over the next 3.2 innings without another walk and he struck out nine of the 11 batters he faced from the second inning on before exiting the game.
On Friday night I saw something from Robert Stephenson that I hadn’t seen since that run he had in Dayton before the hamstring injury. He was commanding his fastball. It was on the corners. It was at the knees. It had late life and was exploding out of his hand. His curveball was at it’s best. Guys couldn’t hit it and the few that made contact on it made just enough contact for it to drop straight down and land in the batters box. He was commanding the pitch to both sides of the plate most of the time, at the knees.
There was something else though, something that wasn’t showing up when he was dominating two years ago. The change up. While he would show it every so often back then, it’s a different pitch these days. It’s got more sinking and fading action to it. He’s confident in throwing the pitch with seemingly no fear about the count or that the hitter can do something with it. And like the fastball and curveball, he was locating it where he wanted to with no problem.
Friday night was the best of Robert Stephenson. Hopefully he can continue to carry it forward because the guy who pitched on Friday night for Pensacola looked everything like a future top of the rotation starter.
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