The Astros may have found a way to get Tatsuya Imai on a better track, and it started with a simple message during the All-Star break: throw more than just the fastball and slider.
Houston had already floated the idea in spring training, but the second-half push was more direct. Pitching coach Josh Miller said the staff reminded Imai of how he worked in Japan last year and wanted him to lean more on the rest of his arsenal.
"Just reminded him of his pitch mix in the NPB last year,” Miller said. “How we still think the slider is a special pitch, but he might need some other offerings to help it play up here. And maybe (it would) allow his fastball and his slider to play better if he used some other pitch types more frequently.”
That message mattered because Imai had barely varied his approach through his first 13 major league starts. Before Tuesday’s game against the Miami Marlins, he was throwing one of his two main pitches 94.1% of the time. The results showed it, too: he came in with a 6.06 ERA, and Houston’s rotation ranked second-worst in the majors in ERA.
Imai said he got caught up in the outcome early on and wasn’t giving enough attention to the third pitch.
“I think I was too focused on the result and … just trying to perform, so I wasn’t really thinking about the third pitch,” Imai said through an interpreter Tuesday night.
The Astros wanted more of the splitter and changeup he used in Nippon Professional Baseball. He had only thrown 54 of those pitches in the first half, including just 13 changeups. Espada and Miller knew the transition would take time, especially with stronger hitters, a different baseball and the constant adjustment of pitching in new places around the league.
Against Miami, the adjustment finally showed up. Imai worked six innings, giving up four hits and one earned run while walking three and striking out eight.
He threw 96 pitches, 56 for strikes, and got 15 whiffs. Eleven of those came on the slider.
His ERA now sits at 5.59 over 58 innings.
Just as important for Houston, he actually used the pitches the club has been pushing. Imai mixed in 12 changeups and splitters, all against left-handed hitters, more than doubling the rate from the first half. Espada liked what he saw.
The Astros are not asking him to shelve the slider, which remains his best weapon. They want the fuller mix to make everything else sharper, too. Tuesday was only one outing, but it was the kind of outing Houston had been waiting to see.
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