It was a trying — and brief — start for Tatsuya Imai on Wednesday as he recorded only four outs in the Astros’ loss to the Twins.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Tatsuya Imai’s slider is unpredictable. It will break to his glove-side at times, like a typical slider, and the “wrong” way at others. Hitters and pitch tracking tools can be equally confused. Even the man throwing the pitch, Houston Astros catcher Christian Vázquez has said, is not always sure where it will go.
Imai’s first Major League Baseball season, in a sense, has resembled the behavior of his signature pitch. Starts have oscillated toward extremes. Imai has silenced opposing lineups in some outings. Others have gone off the rails early, exposing the Astros’ bullpen and undermining their offense as a result.
Two outings before Wednesday were arguably Imai’s strongest with Houston. He struck out 21 batters and walked one in quality starts against Cleveland and Detroit. The Tigers struck two hits and flailed at Imai’s slider often across his six scoreless innings last Thursday at Comerica Park.
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Imai’s start Wednesday against the Twins, then, closer resembled a collapse in Kansas City, in which he received a nine-run lead and recorded two outs. He totaled four outs against Minnesota at Daikin Park, allowing five runs and departing with Houston in a deficit it could not erase in an 8-3 loss.
“It was just the command of his pitches,” manager Joe Espada said, after his team’s streak of five series wins ended. “Stuff was coming in pretty good, just struggled throwing strikes. That was just what I saw today. Came in, warmed up pretty good, good game plan. Just couldn’t execute those pitches.”
A pattern for Imai, so far, is that margin becomes magnified. Four of his 12 outings are quality starts, in which he has allowed five earned runs over 24 total innings. Four other times, Imai has been unable to complete three innings, with 17 runs allowed in five total innings in those starts.
It has resulted in a 6.14 ERA for Imai, whose positive stretches in his debut season are intertwined with pitfalls. The effectiveness that Imai has shown at times, paired with his contract, make harnessing more consistency a priority as the right-hander progresses in his transition to MLB.
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“I think it won’t be a perfect day every day,” Imai said, through an interpreter. “So whenever I don’t have the stuff, it’s how much I can throw at least five innings, be able to perform with that bad stuff.”
Learning to navigate lineups even with subpar stuff is a key for any starting pitcher, and perhaps part of this move with which Imai is still reckoning. Imai identified two issues that arose in his start Wednesday yet the result indicated a struggle to adjust to them in real time.
One aspect that made Imai’s slider effective in Detroit, he said, was that it “looked like a fastball. But for this outing, even when I was throwing it, I felt like the slider didn’t look like a fastball … I couldn’t throw it like a fastball, and that’s probably why the hitter was able to hit it or make contact with it.”
BATTERS
AVG
OBA
AB
R
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
SB
CS
E
Team Totals
.242
.316
2996
400
725
140
6
116
382
297
734
28
12
36
Wade
.333
.385
12
2
4
2
0
1
4
1
3
0
0
0
Alvarez
.319
.433
313
59
100
16
0
26
60
59
65
1
0
2
Peña
.295
.356
183
34
54
9
0
6
21
15
35
8
1
5
Correa
.279
.369
122
22
34
8
0
3
16
18
26
1
0
1
Delgado
.276
.323
29
3
8
1
0
1
4
2
5
0
0
2
Trammell
.265
.333
98
13
26
5
1
3
11
9
36
1
0
1
Paredes
.250
.346
296
35
74
16
0
11
45
33
55
0
0
6
Allen
.247
.291
73
12
18
2
0
1
6
4
19
1
0
1
Shewmake
.243
.260
74
8
18
3
0
3
8
2
13
0
0
1
Walker
.239
.310
326
45
78
16
1
19
56
30
81
0
0
0
Diaz
.239
.267
142
12
34
7
0
3
17
5
26
0
1
1
Altuve
.233
.307
249
38
58
12
0
8
22
26
60
1
2
3
Harris
.226
.286
31
4
7
0
1
0
4
2
6
2
0
0
Smith
.223
.297
292
36
65
13
1
11
32
28
83
9
1
4
Vázquez
.216
.274
162
17
35
6
0
4
19
13
29
0
0
0
Loperfido
.216
.314
102
13
22
7
1
1
12
14
31
1
1
1
Meyers
.211
.269
133
14
28
6
0
3
11
10
30
1
2
0
Matthews
.191
.244
194
20
37
5
1
6
18
14
68
2
4
1
Dezenzo
.191
.255
47
5
9
4
0
1
2
4
19
0
0
0
Price
.167
.231
12
1
2
1
0
0
0
1
6
0
0
1
Cole
.157
.189
51
4
8
1
0
3
8
1
21
0
0
1
Johnson
.143
.294
14
1
2
0
0
0
0
2
3
0
0
0
Whitcomb
.130
.167
23
2
3
0
0
2
5
1
11
0
0
0
Salazar
.056
.227
18
0
1
0
0
0
1
3
3
0
0
0
___
PITCHERS
W
L
ERA
G
GS
SV
IP
H
R
ER
HR
BB
SO
Team Totals
43
46
4.77
89
89
26
788.1
712
446
418
119
386
768
Ullola
0
0
0.00
2
0
0
4
2
0
0
0
0
7
Meyers
0
0
0.00
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
Hader
2
0
0.69
13
0
8
13
2
1
1
1
5
21
Santa
0
1
0.71
8
0
0
12.2
5
5
1
0
5
8
VanWey
1
0
1.50
5
0
0
6
5
2
1
0
0
5
Brown
1
0
1.78
5
5
0
25.1
17
6
5
2
13
32
King
2
1
2.19
35
0
6
37
30
11
9
1
14
28
Okert
1
0
2.41
41
1
0
41
25
11
11
4
12
38
Blubaugh
4
2
3.36
34
0
0
56.1
40
22
21
5
29
53
Lambert
6
5
3.51
13
13
0
74.1
57
29
29
10
31
68
Arrighetti
7
4
4.00
13
13
0
72
56
34
32
9
37
75
Pearson
1
0
4.24
13
0
1
17
15
10
8
1
9
14
Teng
4
6
4.36
23
10
0
64
59
35
31
10
28
63
De Los Santos
0
2
4.78
36
0
5
37.2
36
22
20
5
9
35
Roa
0
1
5.19
7
0
0
8.2
10
5
5
1
7
6
Bolton
0
1
5.40
8
3
1
20
21
12
12
3
14
22
Burrows
4
8
5.58
17
16
0
90.1
103
59
56
19
33
72
Abreu
2
3
5.90
32
0
5
29
24
21
19
7
25
37
Imai
5
4
6.14
12
12
0
48.1
41
33
33
8
30
60
McCullers
2
3
6.86
8
8
0
39.1
38
32
30
7
22
43
Murray
0
0
7.43
8
0
0
13.1
19
11
11
1
7
8
Weiss
0
3
7.62
9
2
0
26
35
24
22
8
20
30
France
0
0
8.10
3
0
0
6.2
6
6
6
1
5
4
Sousa
0
0
8.10
5
0
0
3.1
3
3
3
0
5
4
Salazar
0
0
9.00
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
Alexander
1
1
9.33
4
2
0
18.1
21
19
19
4
8
14
Gordon
0
0
11.57
4
1
0
9.1
21
12
12
6
3
11
Javier
0
1
12.54
3
3
0
9.1
13
13
13
2
9
4
Muñoz
0
0
15.75
3
0
0
4
7
7
7
3
6
6
Just one of four hits Imai allowed Wednesday was on his slider, but it was damaging. After Twins leadoff batter Trevor Larnach doubled on a fastball, Imai induced a flyout from Brooks Lee and struck out Kody Clemens, who chased a full-count slider in the dirt. Josh Bell then drove a 2-1 slider over the batter’s eye in center field, a 452-foot blast that gave the Twins a two-run lead.
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From there, Imai’s command — or aggressiveness in the zone — wavered. He walked five of the final nine batters he faced. Imai threw 23 of 57 pitches for strikes. Twins hitters totaled just 17 swings against him.
Imai got Tristan Gray to whiff on a full-count slider on his 34th pitch of the first inning, stranding the bases loaded. Houston scored once in the bottom of the inning to halve its deficit to 2-1. Imai could not keep it there. After walking two batters in the second, Imai fell behind 3-0 to Clemens and had to come into the zone. Clemens crushed a 3-1 fastball for a three-run homer.
After his outing, which ended on a walk to his next batter, Bell, Imai said he reviewed video and noted a difference in the width of his feet in his pre-pitch setup compared to his start against the Tigers.
“That was one thing that I noticed, so for the next outing I want to try and focus on just the position in general and how wide the feet are going to be when I stand,” Imai said. “That’s probably a key point for the next outing.”
Each outing is part of an acclimation for Imai and the Astros, but avoiding these abrupt exits must carry some urgency. Four relievers covered 7 ⅔ innings in Imai’s wake Wednesday, with three working at least two innings, not a sustainable formula. A team off day Thursday may lessen the impact somewhat, yet the workload came at the end of a burdensome 13-day stretch for the Houston bullpen.
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Cristian Javier is expected to join that unit Friday upon returning from the injured list, which will require sending out a reliever. Miguel Ullola, who made two strong outings in his first call-up but has minor-league options, would seem a candidate. That the Astros will not plug Javier into the rotation at first suggests they favor its current makeup, though Espada said pregame Wednesday “anything can change.”
Inconsistency, then, remained a theme for Imai. Afterward, Espada applied a vote of confidence.
“His last few starts, he’s been really good,” Espada said. “So we’re not going to let one start kind of derail that path that he has created that’s actually been pretty good. He’s throwing the ball extremely well. I thought the pitch selection was good. He lost the zone there, but the velo was good. So there’s nothing I’m concerned (about). Just one of those outings where stuff didn’t land for him.”