Corey Kluber once again struggled to turn in a lengthy outing, lasting four innings in the Yankees’ 5-4 loss to the Blue Jays on Wednesday, but despite allowing three runs and two home runs, he remains insistent that the desired progress is being made.
“I’m as frustrated as anybody with the results on the scoreboard…but I can tell things are heading in the right direction,” Kluber said. “You can only go as long as they let you.”
A small part of Kluber’s lack of length is the Yankees easing him back into what they hope will be a full season after throwing just one inning last year, but the righty still threw a total of 77 pitches, pitching into jams and increasing the pitch count to lead to another short outing.
Now in three starts this season, Kluber hasn’t gone past the fourth inning, and went just 2.1 innings in his previous start.
“Kluber I still think is close,” Aaron Boone said. “I thought the stuff was fine, he obviously had to work pretty hard…but made some pitches to get out of a jam there in his last inning, so I think he’s continuing to get close to where he needs to be.”
Kluber hasn’t had his patented command to begin the season, having walked seven batters in 10.1 innings so far this season, which certainly hasn’t aided his ability to keep the pitch count down and go deeper into his starts.
“When you think of Corey at his best, it’s movement and precision, and just getting over that final hump of being real precise,” Boone said.
On the bright side for Kluber, the movement aspect showed some more promise in Wednesday’s start, particularly with his cutter, which led to 19 swings and 10 whiffs while throwing it over 40 percent of the time. His velocity has remained in the low 90s range, but if he can rediscover the command and movement he possessed before running into injuries in 2019 and 2020, he could become a more reliable starter for a team that certainly needs it.
“Stuff is getting better, location is getting better, the amount of misses over the course of the game are getting less and less,” Kluber said. “The mistakes I’m making I’m paying for them…but I think if you’re looking at the whole, I feel like from my perspective it’s heading in the right direction.”
With no starters aside from Gerrit Cole giving the team any kind of length, the Yankees desperately need another arm to step up and aid what has been an efficient bullpen to start the season. Boone and Kluber believe that Kluber can provide that, but after throwing less than 40 innings over the last two seasons, it may just take more time to reach that point.
“The more reps I’m getting, the better it’s going,” Kluber said. “The improvement, in my mind, is coming…the stuff has been better each time out. I just need the reps.”
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