Kikuchi is having a wonderful season for the Blue Jays accumulating a 3.66 ERA and 65 strikeouts in 66.1 innings pitched. His last two starts were his worst of the season, but from how he has thrown the ball with precision and break, those starts will most likely just be outliers to a great year.
One year ago today, he made a decision that not many pitchers try and do, he developed and added a new harder and sharper curveball to his arsenal.
Kikuchi's Curve wasn't that effective, but this year is a whole new story. He throws the pitch almost 1/3 of the time and basically has batters fooled every time. Opposing batters are only hitting .258/.290/.318 in 69 plate appearances.
