(670 The Score) Right-hander Marcus Stroman is off to a rough start with the Cubs after joining the organization on a three-year, $71-million deal in the offseason.
Stroman is 0-2 with an 8.78 ERA and 1.65 WHIP in 13 1/3 innings across three starts. The Cubs have yet to win when Stroman takes the mound, and he has struggled to find the command of his sinker, as Jordan Bastian of MLB.com has noted. That included Wednesday, when Stroman went 4 1/3 innings and allowed eight runs, seven earned, on eight hits and two walks while striking out seven in the Cubs' 8-2 loss to the Rays.
So what's going on with Stroman? Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy joined the Mully & Haugh Show on Thursday morning to shed light on what's off with him.
"The first thing with Stroman – and not just with Marcus but most of the guys we have going right now – this part of the season is just consistency," Hottovy said. "For relievers, you can come in, have a bad outing, have a couple days off and get out there again, throw another inning and start racking up good innings. My take on Marcus is the consistency in his delivery and the mechanical things he wants to try to feel and do in a game just are not there over the long haul of a game right now. The way I look at it, he's had just two bad innings over the last two games. Both those innings, though, cost eight runs that are magnified more because of the damage that was done in those innings. He started off really well in Colorado (last Friday), was in sync for the first three innings and then that fourth inning, things just kind of unraveled mechanically for him. He couldn't repeat, he couldn't make the adjustments he needed to get out of it and limit the damage. Last night in the first, I think it was a lot of the same thing. He was just pushing the ball early, working underneath it. Mechanically, he was just out of sync. But then as that game went on, he definitely got into a better rhythm. Things started to sync up better for him, and he accomplished some good things as that game went on. Obviously, then he went out for the fifth and gave up a few more.
"As a starter, the big thing in games like that is we got to keep learning what's causing us to be off. What are the mechanical things, the adjustments we have to make to be able to get through those innings to limit the damage?
"Right now, the big thing is just the consistency. It's early in the season. I think you're going to see that come the more and more we get work in, the more and more we get into the season. And like I said, it's just continuing to learn, continuing to get to the point where mechanically you can make the adjustment you need to quickly. And then I think you'll see a different version of him for sure."
