PHILADELPHIA -- The Cubs were aggressive in their pursuit of Jameson Taillon in free agency over the winter for plenty of reasons. They felt he could shoulder a heavy workload, while pounding the strike zone and injecting some more veteran leadership to the rotation.
Nearly two months into this season, Taillon has struggled to show Chicago’s fans why the club reeled him in with a four-year, $68 million contract. On Saturday, the big right-hander’s stumble out of the blocks continued in a 12-3 loss to the Phillies, who chased Taillon before the end of the third inning at Citizens Bank Park.
“Being on a new team in a new place,” Taillon said, “you want to prove that I deserve to be here and I’m a good player. So far, I haven’t had the opportunity to show that. It’s a pretty crappy feeling.
“And obviously when you’re pitching, you’re out there by yourself. It’s not fun. But you have no choice but to punch back. Pick yourself up and find a way to punch back.”
Five batters into Saturday’s defeat, Philadelphia delivered what proved to be the decisive blow when Kyle Schwarber crushed a grand slam into the second deck beyond the right-field wall. Kody Clemens went deep later in the frame and Taillon was charged with eight runs (six earned) in 2 1/3 innings by the time the smoke cleared.
This marked Taillon’s fourth start back from the injured list -- following a bout with a left groin issue -- but he insisted that he feels fine physically. The underlying numbers (pitch movement, velocity, etc.) are also all fairly in line with his career norms, making the starter’s struggles a complicated puzzle to solve at the moment.
“We've already talked a little bit about it,” Cubs catcher Yan Gomes said. “He's got tremendous stuff. His velo's up. Everything's playing like it's supposed to. We've just got to kind of go back and kind of take a couple steps backwards and kind of figure it out and get him back to the guy that we know he is.”
Last year with the Yankees, Taillon logged 177 1/3 innings over 32 starts, posting a 3.91 ERA with 151 strikeouts and just 32 walks. In his past four outings, the righty has issued six walks in 12 2/3 innings. For comparison, Taillon did not walk his sixth batter in 2022 until his 11th appearance of the season.
Taillon enjoys the process of digging into the data and identifying places to make adjustments, and the pitcher plans on doing that in the upcoming days. His understanding of the analytical side of the game, coupled with the ability to put the findings into practice, is one reason the Cubs were interested in adding him to the fold.
“It’s not the attention to detail. It’s not that,” Taillon said. “It’s just, when I’m out there, I’m not making pitches like I’m used to.”
That was the bottom line for Cubs manager David Ross.
“The thing that stood out just a little bit,” Ross said, “was just getting ahead at times, and just not being able to finish and put guys away.”
Ross pointed to the crucial early battle with Schwarber, who stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and one out in the first inning. The Phillies' slugger was behind in the count, 0-2, and then took a curveball below the zone. After Schwarber worked the count even again, Taillon decided to go back to the breaking ball.
The pitch hung over the heart of the zone and Schwarber sent it rocketing into the seats.
“I thought, if you lay off it once, maybe he’ll lay off it twice,” Taillon said. “Maybe I tried to make it too sharp or something, and kind of got sped up on it.”
Taillon (0-3, 8.10 ERA) was confident he would be able to pinpoint his issues with two strikes and turn a corner. He pointed to a similar sequence of events two years ago, even in the same ballpark.
On June 12, 2021, when Taillon was pitching for New York, he surrendered four runs in the first inning against the Phillies and was pulled with only one out recorded. His ERA ballooned to 5.74 on the season at the time. He then went 6-0 with a 2.11 ERA over his next 10 outings.
“Went back to the drawing board,” Taillon said. “Looked at a lot of things, did a deep dive and then ended up kind of turning my season around. So, you can definitely find some good from the bad and pick yourself up, and hopefully make yourself stronger.”