Joe Jacques credits Red Sox teammate on pitch that 'will create misses top of zone'
Red Sox left-hander Joe Jacques earned his call-up to make his MLB debut back on June 12th. If you might recall, it was a bit of a bizarre one with not recording anything on his pitching line before the game being suspended due to rain.
“Debut was pretty wild.” Jacques told Beyond the Monster. “I was coming in with bases loaded in the rain with two outs. I was kind of glad I was thrown into the fire like that. I felt like other than three outings, I feel like I got the job done in most of them. I still let in runs in some of them but I was trying to cover innings to save Martin and Kenley. That was my kind of job so even if I gave up any runs in those games, it’s whatever. I just needed to cover the innings.”
After his debut, Jacques would go on to pitch in 17 games for the Red Sox before being optioned after his last outing on August 5th. He has yet to appear in a game for the WooSox since being activated but does know what part of his game he is working on.
“There is definitely stuff I want to work on.” Jacques said. “I want to tweak the slider a little bit and get it more consistent with low and away to lefties. I want to mix my four-seam top of the zone, kind of like John Schreiber. He has the four-seam that goes up and the sinker that goes down. I told him before my last outing against the Blue Jays that I wanted to try to mix in the four-seam because I think I can get it to 94-95 MPH. I did throw one at 94 MPH so I would love to have thank sinker low 90s and with two strikes I can blow by guys 95 in the top of the zone.”
Jacques had a dominant stretch against lefties during the first half of the year in Worcester. He has struck out 22 left-handed batters and only walked two over the first couple months of the year. His splits at the major league level have been on his mind.
“We are just working on some mechanical adjustments down here.” Jacques added. “My numbers against lefties were bad up there. I want to keep refining that, but I think a lot of the hits I let up up there were probably not hits. I let up a ton of weak contact so that is the positive I can take from my numbers up there.”
When Jacques was called up in June, the Red Sox pitching staff was pretty thinned out due to a few key injuries to the rotation and bullpen. The New Jersey native pitched well enough that he will get another look in the near future, as he is a member of the 40-man roster.
I asked him what some of his favorite games or at-bats were during his first stint in the majors.
“Getting the save in Toronto because it was packed.” Jacques said. “It felt good for them to call my name in that situation. Even if there were two or three others left in the bullpen, it just gave me extra confidence that they thought I could handle that situation. Against the Mets, I got in a little bit of a jam. I struck out Lindor and McNeil back-to-back and got out of it. It’s always good to know you have the stuff to punch out Lindor since he is a righty. I was able to punch out Seager with some nasty stuff too so that kind of stuff gives me confidence that I can do it for a long time.”
He also had a quick shoutout to Fenway.
“You feel like you are in a little cage out there since everyone can see you.” Jacques noted. “Of all the places I have played, Fenway is by far the best. I loved pitching on that mound.”
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In the last few years I’ve noticed that the majority of pitchers don’t throw strikes they pitch to have the batter swing at a pitch outside the zone.