BALTIMORE — Michael King is in a tough spot. He’s become one of the best multi-inning relievers in the game this season. The Yankees have leaned on him in big spots already this season. Tuesday night he was simply dominant again holding off the Orioles hitters in the Yankees 5-4 win at Camden Yards.
In his heart, however, King still thinks of himself as a starter and wants to be one in the future. The Yankees know that and when a spot start came up last week because of back-to-back rainouts they thought about giving him a chance to start against the White Sox — for a minute. Yankees manager Aaron Boone acknowledged that he is too valuable in his current role to mess with it right now.
Considering he was not sure he would make the major league team during spring training, King took the news in stride.
“I think first things first is wins. So if Boonie thinks that I’m more valuable doing this, then I will gladly do it,” King said. “If the time comes where he wants me to start, I will gladly do it. I just want to help the team win in as many ways as possible.”
This season, King has been a main contributor to the Yankees bullpen’s early success. The Bombers relievers lead the majors with a 2.50 ERA despite the concerning trend of struggling closer Aroldis Chapman allowing an earned run in each of his last four appearances. Tuesday night, Chapman allowed the Orioles to cut the Yankees lead to a run and put the winning run on second base.
But the Orioles had been absolutely shut down by King for the three innings before, giving the Yankees a chance to build some insurance offense and withstand Chapman’s shaky ending.
Tuesday night, King was ridiculous. He pitched three perfect innings, faced nine batters and struck out six.
It’s not surprising anymore.
King leads the majors in strikeouts as a reliever with 37 over 25.2 innings pitched in 12 appearances. His strikeout percentage (39.4%) and Whiff% (41.2) both jumped by nearly 17 points this season and his walk rate is down over 4% to 4.3.
All of that is to say that the 26-year-old right-hander the Yankees got from the Marlins is sporting a spiffy 1.40 ERA and is a big weapon in the Yankees bullpen for now.
“He’s tough to describe, because he could be closer on 29 other teams, he could be a starter on 29 other teams. He could be that late inning leverage guy,” Yankee slugger Aaron Judge said. “It’s been fun watching him develop over the years. … He was kind of up and down, up and down. And now he’s kind of established himself with this repertoire and it can handle any big situation.”
That repertoire still has the four pitches — fastball, slurve, changeup, curve — of a starter, which he uses to neutralize hitters from both sides of the plate. It includes a nasty “slurve,” which he learned from Corey Kluber last year. The Kluber ball has a sweeping, horizontal movement that teases in the zone and then finishes down and away from right-handed hitters. It mirrors and compliments his sinker, which has always been his strong baseline pitch. Against left handed-hitters, King mostly goes with his four-seam fastball up in the zone and his changeup.
“I mean, it’s like video game stuff out there,” Yankees right-hander Jameson Taillon said of King. “He makes his strikes look like balls and his balls look like strikes. It’s kind of like a crossfire can go and you can backdoor a sinker and throw you a curveball into the batter’s box and make you look like a fool.”
And while King still harbors the hopes of being a starter eventually, he has found that he likes the adrenaline of being a reliever. Tuesday night, he came in with no outs and a runner on second base.
“The adrenaline’s definitely huge. And I love picking up my teammates, I love having [Taillon] have confidence in me and say you have my run out there, but I know you’re gonna get the outs,” King said. “So I love that. I love helping my team.”
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