https://www.federalbaseball.com/washington-nationals-analysis/90825/miles-mikolas-starting-provide-what-washington-nationals-paid-forSam Sallick points out Mikolas has had a 2 MPH jump in his average fastball since the start of the year.
In a more protected role, Mikolas slowly began to regain his form. Importantly, Mikolas’ velocity is really trending upwards. In that Dodgers start, Mikolas averaged 91.8 MPH on his 4-seam and 91.2 MPH on his sinker. Last night, Mikolas averaged 93.8 MPH on the 4-seamer and 93.5 MPH on the sinker.
While Mikolas has solid command, he does not have a ton of deception or an elite secondary pitch. That means he needs to have at least some velocity to be successful. When he is in that mid-90’s range, he can use his craft effectively to get outs. However, when he is in the low-90’s, that heater is basically batting practice.
Mikolas has been able to stay in the strike zone, avoid walks (2 in his last 4 outings), and not bury the team.
His April 8th start was in a lot of ways the nadir for the whole staff in terms of consequences if not runs allowed. With no opener, he only went 3 innings. While he only gave up a couple of runs, he was shaky, so Butera brought in Lord for 3 innings of 1 run ball. Because it was still a winnable game at 3-1 Cards, Butera started to use his higher lev relievers. He hoped to get some length out of Cionel Perez as his prime relievers, Poulin and Henry, had pitched the day before. Perez started walk, walk, single for a run, but was eventually bailed out by a double play. For the 8th, the Nats got a quick 1-2-3 from Henry and brought him back for the 9th hoping to keep the game within reach and to avoid Poulin (who had ptiched more than Henry the night before). That blew up in a 3 run 9th.
While Henry pitched one more time after several days off, that outing probably was the first sign of Henry's injury. Butera and Toboni learned a lot from that start, including the limits on his veteran starters and the need to cycle in more relievers to avoid abuse. We started to see guys sent down and called up shortly after this point. Butera began using openers first with Mikolas and then with Litttell. We also began to see a substantial improvement in the performance of the bullpen as guys like Schultz, Parker, and Varland began to find roles.
