(670 The Score) Cubs right-hander Jameson Taillon has had a nightmarish debut season in Chicago, as he’s 2-6 with a 6.93 ERA and 1.52 WHIP after joining the club on a four-year, $68-million deal in the offseason.
The Cubs have gone 2-12 in Taillon’s 14 starts, which is one of the reasons they’re 39-45 and seven games back of the NL Central-leading Reds.
When Taillon starts, the Cubs have a .143 winning percentage. When anyone else starts, they’ve played .529 ball.
For now, Taillon remains in the rotation, but how can he fix his struggles? Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottvy offered insight during an appearance on the Mully & Haugh on Wednesday morning.
“There’s obviously some things we’re working on, trying to get some pitch shapes back to where we feel like they’ve been in the past,” Taillon said. “Some of that is mechanical, some if it may be a grip change or something that we need to continue to hone in on. But he’s putting in the work. He’s out there working every single day trying to get better, trying to get back to what we feel like we can do. And on the flip side of that, there is just some bad luck and stuff involved with that.
“And it kind of falls together. Usually when things aren’t going well, you start pressing a little bit. You start trying to make pitches a little bit better. You try to execute them or put them in spots where you’re trying not to get beat instead of trying to get guys out. I think when that happens, you lose a little bit of that conviction that you have when you know you have a pitch that you can beat somebody in the strike zone (with). Maybe you fall behind, maybe you go from 0-2 to 2-2 really quick because you’re trying to be too fine at times. I think that’s common. That’s kind of human nature when things aren’t going well, to really put a lot of stress and emphasis on every pitch that you throw. Like Jameson is a professional. He works hard. He’s been around the game for a while. He’s been around some of the best pitchers in the game, being around the Yankees and Gerrit there and in Pittsburgh, and seeing how some of the best of the best do it. So he knows what he needs to do to be successful. The biggest part for me to continue to watch is there are things every single game that he’s doing that are getting better. But when the little things happen, when those hits, those bloopers find a hole, that groundball finds a hole – it’s finding a way to continue to stay focused on what’s going to get you through that outing and giving you success and not chasing results, which is not uncommon for guys when they’re going through a stretch like this.”
You can listen to Hottovy’s full interview in the audio player above.
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