3 STL Cardinals most to blame for historically terrible April
By Josh Wilson
Cardinals to blame for April slump: No. 2, Miles Mikolas
Miles Mikolas is putting up a 1.705 WHIP so far this season, which, if it held up for the year, would be the worst career year for him. He has the second-highest ERA among the starting rotation that has struggled mightily as a collective. He’s also given up the most hits and most runs of anyone on the starting staff.
Even worse, his 45 hits so far this year lead the MLB. Not a stat you want to be the league leader in by any means.
The most troublesome pitch for Mikolas has been his fastball this year. He’s leaving it out over the dead-center of the plate more (9.5% of the time in the middle zone, compared to a league average of 8.4%) while also throwing it slower than last year at about the same spin rate. Batters are hitting it at a .400 clip, and Statcast has it as +3 in run value, his worst pitch.
Mikolas may need to feature that fastball less. While starting pitchers frequently go to the fastball as their money maker, mixing in the breaking ball at a higher frequency could be the solution for Mikolas to get his game back on track.
In fact, that’s pretty much what he did in his most recent start, which was a good one. He got the win with six strikeouts, didn’t allow a run, and only gave up four hits
Here is his pitch type split compared to his season average:
- Fastball: 24.21% (-2.19%)
- Curveball: 24.21% (+3.6%)
- Sinker: 25.26% (+0.46%)
- Slider: 26.32% (+0.32%)
- Changeup: 0.00% (-2.22%)
Throwing the curve more seemed to help.