Frankie Montas’ transition to the Yankees has not been the smoothest, on or off the field.
When he was acquired from the Athletics before the trade deadline, Montas was still building back up after he had missed time with shoulder inflammation. Then before he could join the Yankees, the right-hander went on the bereavement list, leading to an 11-day layoff between starts.
Now Montas is trying to get adjusted to a new team, new staff, new catcher and new division on the fly. From the early results, Montas has not lived up to the type of pitcher the Yankees thought they were getting. After three starts — the latest on Thursday, when he gave up six runs in six innings against the Blue Jays — he has been tagged for 14 earned runs over 14 innings.
“You’re hoping to get him up to speed fast and sometimes it doesn’t always happen that way,” pitching coach Matt Blake said Friday before the Yankees’ 4-0 loss to the Blue Jays at the Stadium. “You gotta just keep iterating as you go. [Thursday] night’s a good example of that: felt like we got out of rhythm in the second inning there. Then in between innings, having some conversations about what this needs to look like and him going out there and attacking with the sinker and getting back in rhythm. Hopefully that’s something he can build on.”
Montas, who is scheduled to make his next start on Tuesday against the Mets, was done in by a five-run second inning against the Blue Jays. Blake thought Montas got away from himself in the inning, leaning too much on his four-seam fastball and splitter instead of his sinker.
The results back that up. In the second inning, Montas threw 28 pitches — eight four-seam fastballs, eight splitters, six sliders, three cutters and only three sinkers. The Blue Jays got two of their hits on his four-seam fastball and the other two on his splitter.
In Montas’ other five innings (when he gave up just one run), he threw 32 of his 64 pitches for sinkers, to go with 14 four-seam fastballs, seven sliders, six splitters and five cutters.
On the season, Montas has thrown 27.7 percent of his pitches as four-seam fastballs, 25.2 percent as splitters and 22.9 percent as sinkers. Opposing hitters have hit his four-seam fastball the hardest, according to Baseball Savant, which grades the pitch with a run value of seven — the worst of any pitch in his arsenal.
The Yankees want Montas to get more aggressive with his sinker, part of the feeling-out process that takes place any time a pitcher joins a new team.
“It’s a little bit of out-of-rhythm in a new environment, a little bit of out-of-rhythm because he’s just getting back from his injury,” Blake said. “Then really, us knowing what his strengths are and getting him to roll with those. I think that’s something that’s going to get ironed out. Obviously he hoped to hit the ground faster than he has so far, but that’s part of it.”
Of course, it hasn’t helped the optics of Montas’ slow start that Jordan Montgomery (whom Montas essentially replaced in the rotation) and even JP Sears (part of the package the Yankees sent to Oakland) have instantly pitched well with their new teams. But being dropped into the middle of a pennant race, especially during the Yankees’ roughest stretch of the season, hasn’t given Montas the benefit of patience from the outside.
“Ultimately in New York, we’re in a high-profile environment, in a pennant race, so there’s not a ton of breathing room for those things to happen,” Blake said. “They appear much larger when they don’t go right. So I think for us, it’s just continuing to take a breath, make sure the work’s good, make sure he’s recovering well, make sure we’re getting the conversations to happen on the backside and the feedback coming back around of what he likes and doesn’t like, what [catcher Jose Trevino] likes and doesn’t like and then just put it back in play again on Tuesday.”
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