Jackson Kowar will ‘keep pushing’ to adjust quicker in his outings for Kansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals believe that when Jackson Kowar gets himself in sync, he’s a top-caliber pitcher in the major leagues, and they’re not alone in that assessment.
The trick now becomes getting Kowar to that place where he’s consistently in that zone where his body and mind line up and allow him to put his full ability on display.
When Kowar, 24, acknowledges his own frustration with his performance, that too serves as an indication he knows he hasn’t put things together at the major-league level in a significant way. He’s shown the flashes, and he has certainly felt the difference between those moments when he’s in control and those when things speed up on him or get out of whack.
For the first three innings against the Seattle Mariners at Kauffman Stadium on Sunday, things were out of whack and it led to a few very loud THWACKS coming off Mariners bats. Kowar gave up five runs in the first three innings of a series-ending 7-1 loss.
Kowar, who walked three and gave up seven hits, made it through four innings before his pitch count reached 97 and prompted him to yield to the bullpen.
Four of the seven hits he allowed were extra-base hits, including a pair of home runs to left-handed hitters Jarred Kelenic and Jake Bauers.
“The walks, again, killed me early, and anything I got beat on was just center cut,” Kowar said. “So it really all boiled down to command, I would say. Just not locating pitches either in the zone at all or when they were in the zone catching way too much plate to a couple of guys.”
The outing wasn’t exclusively doom and gloom. Royals manager Mike Matheny and Kowar both pointed to Kowar’s fourth and final inning on the mound as a sign of him getting in sync and pitching more in line with the way he had as he came up through the minor leagues.
Kowar retired the side in order in the fourth inning, inducing ground balls from the Nos. 2-4 hitters in the Mariners’ lineup after having struggled with command.
“A mix of a mindset and some mechanical adjustments, just being aggressive earlier in the counts, try and take on more white, pitch to the corner a little bit less and be more aggressive,” Kowar said of the difference in the fourth inning.
“Then just making a couple of mechanical adjustments as far as getting down the mound and having my direction be more linear and less east to west. It’s something I’ve always fought at every level. It’s frustrating that it continues to be something that holds me up, but we’ll just keep working on it and keep pushing.”
Royals All-Star second baseman Whit Merrifield shared the message he expressed to Kowar during Sunday’s game, urging him not to worry about the outcome of that particular game and instead focus on figuring out what he needs to do to perform in the major leagues.
“I just basically told him let’s not be so concerned with results the rest of the season,” Merrifield said. “Obviously, nobody wants to fail. He’s going to be a big part of this team moving forward. He’s not going anywhere. He’s going to get his chance up here. So I just told him let’s don’t be so locked in and concerned with the results [for] the rest of these two or three starts. Just kind of hone in on being up here and pitching up here and try to figure out how to be successful.”
Kowar, part of the 2018 draft class that made history by having five pitchers start games in the same season for the major-league club that drafted them, has ranked among the top prospects in baseball for several years.
The 6-foot-5 right-hander selected No. 33 overall in 2018 entered the weekend ranked among the Top 100 prospects by MLBPipeline.com (No. 86) as well as Baseball America (No. 76). He’d been dominant at Triple-A before his initial promotion to the majors in June.
“His stuff is so good,” Matheny said. “It’s going to be fun once he stumbles through these ups and downs to where he finds that consistency. When he does, it’s going to be impressive to watch him, I think, for a long time. He has everything, whether it’s the makeup, the work ethic, the ability to understand a game plan and to retain it. He’s got all the tools that you need.
“It’s just not that easy. Some of our young guys make it look easier than what it is. Others are going to have to fight their way through it. When they get it, it’s something that they’ll move forward from and not have to look back on.”
This story was originally published September 19, 2021 at 6:25 PM.
