Kenta Maeda has lost his spot in the Tigers' rotation -- but not on the team.
“He’s going to go to the bullpen for the foreseeable future,” manager A.J. Hinch told reporters Thursday morning before the finale of a four-game series with Cleveland. “We have some adjustments we’d like him to make. He’s open to any and all ideas.”
The moves comes amid the worst season of Maeda's career and in year one of his two-year, $24 million contract. After getting rocked by the Guardians Tuesday night to raise his ERA to 7.26 -- by far the worst in the majors among pitchers who've made at least 15 starts -- Maeda himself said, "I'm causing too much trouble to the team. I feel sorry about that."
The Tigers are hoping he can figure things out in a long-relief role. They broke the news to Maeda on Wednesday in what Hinch called a "very cordial conversation."
"He understands. He wants to attack it and get better. He knows it hasn’t been going great and this isn’t representative of what he can be or what he’s going to be," said Hinch. "He has some areas he needs to get better at if he wants to be in the rotation.”
For the 36-year-old Maeda, Hinch said "it’s going to come down to command. I know we talk about velocity and pitch usage and chase, but it begins and ends with command. When he’s got it, he’s really good. We’ve seen that this year."
Batters are hitting .305 with a .906 OPS against Maeda this season. The Tigers have lost his last eight starts. Lately, things have taken a turn for the worse: Maeda has allowed 16 hits and 15 runs in his last two starts. Shifting him into the bullpen is a way of "easing the burden of getting into games," Hinch said.
“The way the last two games have gone, it’s not easy on the team and it’s not easy on Kenta to feel like he’s letting a lot of people down," he said "We have to boost him up, give him some confidence and give him a runway to have better success."
Maeda's next turn in the rotation would have been Sunday against the Dodgers, the final game before the All-Star break. The Tigers will go with a bullpen day that could wind up including Maeda. Their plan for his spot in the rotation spot after the break is yet to be determined.
“We can’t have a pitcher on our team that we're not going to use,” Hinch said. “We’re going to use him as a normal reliever. I will pay attention to how often I use him and how we get him into bullpen mode. We have to get him a successful outing, one way or another.”