WEST SACRAMENTO -- Following another dominant start away from Sutter Health Park against the Giants over the weekend, Luis Severino expressed urgency to find a way to pitch better at home and stabilize his home/road splits.
“I just need to figure out a way to pitch good at home," Severino said on Saturday. "I feel like if I only pitch on the road, I’ll be freakin’ Cy Young. But I need to get better at home.”
Through six starts at Sutter Health Park, Severino is 0-4 and holds a 6.75 ERA with 14 walks, 29 strikeouts and four home runs allowed in 34 2/3 innings. Through four away games, he has allowed just two earned runs in 25 innings with six walks, 16 strikeouts and no homers for a 0.72 road ERA that ranks second among qualified Major League starters, just behind the Yankees’ Max Fried (0.71).
One fix Severino talked about is throwing his home bullpen sessions in between starts off the actual stadium mound rather than in the A’s bullpen that sits beyond the right-field wall. He plans to start that with his next session before his next scheduled home start against the Angels on Thursday.
Severino came away with the idea after a conversation with pitching coach Scott Emerson, who believes the change will help him feel more comfortable with the field, which from the mound offers a view unlike any other ballpark in MLB.
“There’s a definite weird look from the rubber to home plate with where the walkway is behind the dish,” Emerson said. “The press box is off-center, and that can kind of give you an optical illusion of maybe the plate being in a different spot, per se. I think if we can get his [bullpen] sessions off the game mound and get him more comfortable seeing the visual there, that’ll help.”
Severino also has referenced the lack of a connected clubhouse to the dugout -- the A’s new two-story clubhouse at Sutter Health Park is situated behind left field -- as something he has had to adjust to. His usual in-game routine on days he starts consists of heading inside the clubhouse during the half-innings he is not on the mound to either watch film or move around to keep his body warm.
Of course, the A’s can’t just lift their clubhouse and move it closer to the dugout, but they are thinking creatively about how to help Severino find a solution.
“When you don’t have a clubhouse to go to, it can be frustrating at times,” Emerson said. “We’ve just got to find a way to be better. Whether it’s going into the clubhouse from the mound every now and then to kind of relax and decompress and sit down in a comfortable chair where you control the air conditioning or heat each and every game.
“But that’s going to be tough, too, because it’s going to take two minutes to get off the field and two minutes to get back on the field. Maybe we can find a comfortable spot in the dugout or the [dugout] bathroom. Clean it up a little bit to where he feels comfortable with.”
Severino is not alone in his struggles at home. Entering Monday, A’s pitchers held a 5.81 ERA at Sutter Health Park -- third-highest home ERA in the Majors -- compared with a 4.53 ERA on the road, which is the 11th-highest. One observation A’s manager Mark Kotsay has about the team’s temporary home is that how the ballpark plays on a given day is dependent on the wind direction. If the wind is blowing in, the stadium plays big. If it’s blowing out, the home runs become more frequent.
“That’s something we need to look at,” Emerson said. “Stadium factors of what the ball does at home compared to road. I’ve been told it’s probably a home run-friendly ballpark. … We’ve got to dive into a little bit more of that. How much does the metrics actually change ball flight coming in for our pitchers? If the wind is easier going out, then it’s harder going in.
“I’m hoping maybe when the weather warms up, the wind dies down. It’s a constant battle of how the metrics will play a little bit. … Now we’ve just got to figure out a little better how it plays at home and make all our pitchers -- not just Sevy -- feel comfortable out there.”