How Taillon can continue to get better despite another quality start

CHICAGO -- There are days when a lack of offensive production puts a magnifying glass over the few mistakes made by a starting pitcher. That was the position Cubs righty Jameson Taillon found himself in on Wednesday night.

Taillon turned in the type of outing that was solid across the board, but the right-hander surrendered three home runs and that was damage enough in a 3-1 loss to the Marlins at Wrigley Field. Chicago’s offense went quiet against lefty Ryan Weathers and the Miami bullpen, distorting the end result of Taillon’s work.

“Look, you look at the line tonight,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said, “it’s six innings, four hits, no walks, seven strikeouts. If you didn’t watch the game, you’d say that’s a pretty darned good start.”

Instead, Taillon took a seat in the interview room and dissected his performance, zeroing in on a few areas he can continue to clean up going forward.

1. Command vs. expanding

Taillon is currently sporting a 4.4% walk rate that ranks near the top of the Major Leagues among qualified pitchers. With zero free passes issued against the Marlins, the righty now has given up more home runs (13) than walks (nine) in his 49 2/3 innings on the season.

Avoiding walks is one of Taillon’s great traits, but he knows stubbornness can creep in and lead to being in the strike zone too much at times.

“Definitely,” Taillon said. “If I'm filling up the zone and working fast, we’ve got a great defense. I like taking our chances there. But, I think there are times where, let’s use that good command and expand. Use that good command to not throw strikes all the time.

“Sometimes I get into that strike-throwing mode, where it’s almost hard for me to change my release. That’ll just be something we work on.”

Taillon pointed out that two of the homers he allowed on Wednesday came in two-strike counts. In the fourth inning, Agustín Ramírez crushed a 1-2 sweeper out to left and Kyle Stowers went deep on an 0-2 fastball that was high and inside. In his previous outing against the Mets, three of the four homers Taillon allowed came with two strikes.

“That’s just not a good trend and I need to put a stop to that,” Taillon said. “I probably had room to expand a little more.”

2. Improving against lefties

Taillon knows that teams will try to stack lineups with left-handed hitters when he is on the mound. Over his first seven turns this season for the North Siders, he found ways to navigate through those batters effectively.

In that time period, Taillon limited lefty hitters to a .160/.209/.235 slash line with no home runs. It has been a different story the last two starts for the right-hander. Against the Mets, all four home runs were from the left side (Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Jeff McNeil and Brett Baty). Stowers went deep twice against Taillon in Wednesday’s loss.

“I was doing pretty well, and then the last two starts it hasn’t been so good against lefties,” Taillon said. “I think it’s just understanding what pitches I give up slug on to lefties. I’ve given up a lot of homers on the fastball lately, so it’s understanding my changeup’s gotten a lot better, my curveball doesn’t give up a ton of slug.

“So in big situations or to really good players, it’s just understanding where the slug is, where my safe areas are. I do think I have the pitch package to do it, and I have the awareness while I’m out there to do it. The last couple starts, I just haven’t done it.”

3. Continuing to hone mechanics

All in all, Taillon walked away from Wednesday’s outing encouraged by some progress made with his delivery and the action in his pitches. He pointed to the errant sweeper that Ramírez launched as his one true mistake in the outing.

The way Taillon saw things, Stowers just took a pair of really good swings.

“He’s hot right now,” Taillon said.

Taillon felt the work he did earlier in the week with pitching coach Tommy Hottovy on his delivery paid off. The pitcher focused on drills emphasizing tension from the ground up with his drive leg, allowing his arm to feel more of an “athletic” whip action. Against the Marlins, Taillon said that component felt improved.

“I thought my arm action was getting a little long,” Taillon explained. “So, it’s trying to connect and get that a little more compact. And then just I've felt lately like I was kind of drifting through my move towards the plate.”