Phillies

Jerad Eickhoff’s Curveball Dominates Marlins in Phillies’ Win

By Bob Wankel

Published: Apr 27th, 2019 · 1:00 AM EDT

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After a series of injury setbacks nearly robbed Jerad Eickhoff of his entire 2018 season, he finally made his way back to the Phillies late last September. With a few relief appearances under his belt, he then made his first start for the Phillies in 394 days on September 28 against the Atlanta Braves. Eickhoff, who not so long ago was seemingly on the verge of becoming an afterthought, allowed two earned runs and struck out eight of the 15 batters he faced on a night his team would go on to lose by a lopsided 10-2 score.

At the time, his performance that evening seemed like nothing more than a minor feel-good narrative tucked away inside another forgettable game amid the middle of a miserable September collapse. As it turns out, that start may have meant more than anyone could have imagined. Much more.

I asked Gabe Kapler after Eickhoff impressed in 4-0 win over the Marlins tonight if there was anything he took away from that outing.

”It was the curveball, I mean that’s his pitch. We saw that last September. It’s interesting, now all of his starts since that game, and it’s not a lot of them, but they’ve all been high strikeout starts,” said Kapler. “It’s a lot of swing and miss. It’s a lot more swing and miss than you’d expect.”

Eickhoff talked after the game about what it has been like to be back in the rotation after so many setbacks while also having some early success. “It just makes everything a little sweeter now. I think that’s what I’ve kind of learned from this whole experience and the perspective from everything has changed quite a bit,” he said. “I’m just pitching for these guys.”

Eickhoff needed just 86 pitches to toss seven innings of shutout baseball. He allowed only two hits and a walk to go along with six strikeouts to earn the win, his first since August 2017. That effort was plenty good enough behind an offense that was paced by three home runs, including this 400 ft. eighth inning blast off the bat of Bryce Harper:

LONG GONE!

Harper makes it 4-0, Phillies! pic.twitter.com/D8P40VTwfJ

— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) April 27, 2019

Eickhoff’s curveball continues to be the driving force behind his effectiveness. Of the 20 strikeouts he has recorded in 17 innings pitched this season, 15 have come via the curveball, but its value goes beyond just wiping away opposing hitters. Consider the seventh inning in which the right-hander needed only eight pitches to finish. Eickhoff, who Kapler called a “throwback” prior to the game, generated three weak groundouts off the bats of Brian Anderson, Starlin Castro, and Jorge Alfaro by using his curveball and what Kapler believes is an improved slider from Eickhoff over the one he saw during spring training. 

What makes the pitch so good right now? 

“The change in speed is one that really stands out to me,” explained Kapler. “73, 74, 75 mph is a lot different than 91 [mph] and a lot of times when pitchers have a pitch like that they don’t have as much command as Jerad has in his curveball.”

“It’s pitching, not throwing. It’s craft, not power,” said Kapler prior to the game of Eickhoff’s unique approach on the mound. Afterward, Kapler elaborated on that thought.

“He’s not kind of a 2019 pitcher. It’s super crafty, it’s changing speeds, it’s location over velocity, it’s throwing a ball when he wants to throw a ball. It’s being in the zone when he wants to be in the zone,” he said. “It’s a lot of swing and miss. It’s much more swing and miss than you would expect, if you just watch it with the naked eye, but there’s a lot of spin on the curveball and he’s able to put it below the zone.”

Of course, Eickhoff won’t have the luxury of facing a Marlins offense that entered the night 27th in team batting average and dead-last in OPS. Still, the bottom line is that this remains an extremely encouraging start following his first two appearances in which he also flashed live stuff, and suddenly, Eickhoff, a true feel-good story, has gone from the odd-man out to a critical piece of the Phillies’ starting rotation.