McAdam: Kimbrel still elite, but not like he was last year

Perhaps the Red Sox were spoiled by Craig Kimbrel last season.

The Sox closer had a season for the ages and came within a few pitches of striking out exactly half the batters he faced last season. Kimbrel was as dominant a late-inning weapon as any reliever in the game, setting impossibly high standards for himself in 2018.

But even allowing for that, Kimbrel has been nowhere near as effective this season.

On Thursday night at Safeco Field, Kimbrel earned his 22nd save, a figure topped by only one other American League reliever (Seattle's Edwin Diaz, with 25). Ultimately, as his manager, Alex Cora, noted earlier this week, a closer is measured by his ability to record "the 27th out of the game,'' and in save situations this season, Kimbrel has failed to do that only twice.

Kimbrel's save percentage of 91.7 percent would be the envy of many tasked with performing the same job.

But look how Kimbrel arrived at that 27th out: he walked the first two hitters he faced before coming back to strike out Kyle Seager, followed by a game-ending double play grounder from Ryon Healy.

Walks have been a particular issue for Kimbrel this season. He's issued 11 in 30 innings pitched -- resulting in a 9.5% walk ratio, meaning that nearly one of every 10 plate appearances against Kimbrel result in a walk. Last year, that figure was just 5.5%. Last year, in 69 innings, he walked just 14.

In other words, in 39 additional innings, Kimbrel last year walked just three more hitters than he already has this year in 30. And while a reliever's ERA can swing wildly because of one or two poor performances, the fact remains that Kimbrel's ERA is nearly a run higher than a year ago - 1.43 then, 2.40 now.

Want more evidence of Kimbrel's decline in dominating hitters? He's nearly twice as likely this season to allow extra base hits as he did a year ago. In 2017, 36 percent of all the hits he allowed went for extra bases; this year, it's a staggering 69 percent. Translated, that means that more than two-thirds of the hits he's allowed this year have gone for extra bases.

That's easily reflected in the home runs allowed. Last year, he gave up six all season; this year, not yet at the halfway point, he's given up five.

The reason for his decline isn't difficult to pinpoint: Kimbrel's four-seam fastball isn't the weapon it was a year ago.

For one thing, according to Brooks Baseball, his average velocity is off by a little more than 1 mph (98.7 mph in 2017 vs. 97.4) and while that still qualifies as plus-plus velocity, the slight drop-off could be significant when it comes to getting swings and misses.

Further, Kimbrel is nowhere near as effective when it comes to getting ahead of hitters. A year ago, he threw a first-pitch strike 65.8 percent of the time; this year, it's down to 55.7 percent. Even for a pitcher as dominant as Kimbrel, getting ahead of hitters only a little more than half the time is troubling, since it changes the rest of the at-bat.

It's tempting to point to Kimbrel's truncated spring training as a reason for his reduced effectiveness, and while it's true that he barely faced major league hitters in March because of his infant daughter's health issues, we're now some two and a half months into the season. That's plenty of time for Kimbrel to get caught up with his mechanics and to build proper arm strength.

A far more likely explanation is the sort of emotional toll that his daughter's illness has had on the pitcher.

"We know what he's been going through," Cora said earlier this week. "Like I said, I can't even imagine coming to work and have the job he has and also the stuff that goes on on a daily basis. And things are much better at home, which is great, but it's not that easy... for him it's been a lot different this year. I mean, I'm still going to give him the ball.''

As he should, of course.

But for now, Cora can't necessarily expect that the same kind of performance that Kimbrel regularly provided last year.