Yusei Kikuchi’s Lack of Command Is a Glaring Concern

Written By Cade Lalim

Angels Articles

April 18, 2026 - Written by Cade Lalim

Last year's biggest acquisition of the offseason and Opening Day starter, Yusei Kikuchi has not gotten off to a great start so far this year. He’s in the middle of a three-year, $63 million contract with the Angels and has pitched to a 4.31 ERA so far. Last year in his first season with the Angels, he owned a 3.99 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP while being named to his second career All Star Game.

Kikuchi has never been a pitcher that’ll blow away opponents with velocity or stuff, hence his 102 career Stuff+, per FanGraphs and an average fastball velocity never averaging higher than 95.5 mph. He owns a career 4.52 ERA and 1.37 WHIP. There’s been a pattern of him allowing hard-contact, but it’s concerning that his groundball rate has seen a decline since it peaked at 52.8% back in 2020. Now it’s down to 40% so far this year. Last year he had a problem giving out walks at a 9.6% clip, but has risen to 11.2% through his first four starts this year; a career high.

2026 by the Numbers

Kikuchi has made four starts so far, after he tied Carlos Rodón and Will Warren last year for the most starts (33) in the American League. He’s pitched to a 7.50 ERA and 1.89 WHIP spanning 18 innings. His FIP has been better at 4.88, but it is still higher than his career 4.48 mark. His metrics look pretty much the same from last season, except he’s generating whiff’s 5.1% more than last year.

It’s still early, but his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is sitting at the highest it’s ever been in his career. While it sat at .314 last year, it’s currently up to .368 which is pretty high. This could be as a result of him giving up more hard-contact. Kikiuchi’s career hard-contact rate is 36.7%, but currently sits at 48.3%; a pretty big jump.

Shake-Up to Kikuchi’s Arm Angle and Pitch Arsenal

This year, Kikuchi’s arm angle has increased to 51°. Higher arm angles tend to lead to lack of command and unpredictable break on pitches. Kikuchi’s arm angle sat at 42° from 2022-2024, but he lowered it to 36° last year. He hasn’t released it as high as he is now since his debut season in 2020 where it sat at 59°.

Looking into his pitch-mix, his slider and four-seam are still a staple for Kikuchi but this year he decided to add a cutter while eliminating his changeup. He’s also featured a splitter and curveball through his first few starts so far. His new cutter has averaged 90.3 mph with league-average break.

Bad Misses Leading to Hard Contact

For a pitcher like Kikuchi who doesn’t feature amazing stuff with average velocity, it’s important for him to command his pitches well. He’s already given up three home runs so far, and they have all come off breaking pitches that miss in the middle of the zone. I’ll break down each home run and what went wrong.

He gave up his first homer to Yordan Alvarez during his first start of the year on a front-door slider that landed right in Alvarez’s wheel house. This one came on a 3-2 count in the bottom of the fifth. If it had more vertical drop, it would’ve been more effective but instead it hung-up and Alvarez didn’t miss it.

Kikuchi’s next two allowed home runs would come on April 13 against the New York Yankees. His first one came off the bat of Aaron Judge on a pretty bad miss in a hitter’s count. Down 2-0 in the count, he left his splitter up and in the middle of the zone where Judge would then send it 456 feet with a 116.2 mph exit velocity. A good splitter tends to start towards the bottom of the zone, then quickly dip below the zone causing batters to swing and miss or hit for weak contact. Not the case here. He made the same mistake the next inning when José Caballero would join the homer party. Again it was another hanging splitter against a right-handed batter in the same exact spot he missed to Judge.

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Cade Lalim
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