There’s an old baseball adage that goes something like this:
“[Pitcher 1], [Pitcher 2], and pray for rain.”
It’s was used more often back when starting pitching mattered more, for teams that had one or two good starters, and a bunch of bums.
For the 2023 Baltimore Orioles though, the starters haven’t been the issue lately. Instead, the bullpen has been something like “Bautista, Cano, and….pray that we score some more runs.” Other than Felix Bautista and – to a lesser extent, lately – Yennier Cano, the Birds bullpen has been their Achilles heel. Danny Coulombe was great today, and has been pretty good for most of the season, but Bryan Baker has been very unreliable, Mike Baumann is either awful or untouchable, with no in between, Mychal Givens is hurt again and couldn’t throw strikes when he wasn’t, Dillon Tate probably won’t throw a pitch all season, Cionel Perez is back and nobody is very excited about it…etc., etc. etc.
In short, the Birds need bullpen help, and that fact has been staring us in the face for a while now.
Tonight, it looks like Mike Elias & Co. attempted to acquire just that, trading AAA lefty Easton Lucas to the Oakland Athletics in exchange for RHP Shintaro Fujinami.
Fujinami, 29, is in his rookie season in MLB after pitching with the Hanshin Tigers in his native Japan since 2013. He had a rough go of it as a starter to begin the season for the A’s, going 0-4 with a 14.40 ERA, but has fared much better since being moved to the bullpen.
Fuji to the O’s:
Command has gotten better. Has struggled in multi inning outings at times. 102 with a split at 92-96 & a slider that’s effective IF the FB is near the zone. Could be an early leverage situation arm for Hyde to help the bridge to Bautista.
— Dallas Braden (@DALLASBRADEN209) July 19, 2023
In his last 19.1 appearances, Fujinami has a 26 K%, .239 BAA and a 3.26 ERA.
Also worth noting: he started working with Driveline this year.
Have to imagine Orioles see something of interest here, curious to see what – if anything – they tweak.
— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) July 20, 2023
Shintaro Fujinami's first 18 games
* 12.19 ERA
* 20.3 K% / 15.2 BB%
* 87 Location+Shintaro Fujinami's last 16 games
* 2.45 ERA
* 26.0 K% / 8.2 BB%
* 99 Location+— Foolish Baseball (@FoolishBB) July 19, 2023
So, don’t just look at his season stats. This guy has big potential, and if the O’s can unlock something with him the way they did with say, Coulombe, then we may have just made ballgames another inning shorter.
He’s 6’6″, throws 102 MPH, and has a pretty nasty splitter.
Fuji. 102mph ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/kTyfRzjn95
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 21, 2023
Orioles fans, meet your new splitter.
– Top 10 by stuff+ (not far from Bautista's)
– Sits 93, has hit 96
– 19% SwSt
– .276 wOBA pic.twitter.com/ZPdbMSEmTy— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) July 19, 2023
Shintaro Fujinami is extremely interesting to me because whatever fanbase is getting him will lose their mind at an 8.57 ERA but … pic.twitter.com/u4qGbWDNWM
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) July 19, 2023
Shintaro Fujinami's last 15 IP [60 TBF]
2.93 ERA – 0.98 WHIP – .246/.267/.368
26.7% K-BB% – 17% SwStr% – 80.3% Z-Contact%
2.72 SIERA – .273 wOBA – 2.32 FIP
2.4% Barrel% #Birdland pic.twitter.com/HUlTLFmptO
— MLBdream (@MLBdream) July 19, 2023
There are plenty of reasons to be excited about this acquisition (other than just, “hey, they’re trying to soften the landing for Shohei Ohtani once he gets here“). Among those include what we’re going to call the Birds’ bullpen going forward. In the past, we’ve had the BOMB squad of Brad Brach, Darren O’Day, Andrew Miller, and Zach Britton. Right now, we roll with The Mountain and The Rock, AKA the Twin Peaks. Fujinami, another huge dude, is already known as Mount Fuji, so he fits right in.
So what do we call them? The Mountain Range? The Appalachian Trail? The Federal Hills?
Let us know your ideas in the comments.
Oh, right: to make room for Mt. Fuji, the O’s DFA’d Josh Lester. I’m happy for Lester that he got to have his cup o’ coffee at the MLB level this season, but he clearly wasn’t part of this organization’s future.
