What Did John Klein Learn From His First Four Outings?

St. Paul – John Klein has a 7.94 ERA in his first four starts this season, but there’s no cause for alarm, yet.

His inflated ERA is the result of facing a red-hot Worcester Woo Sox lineup for his first start at CHS Field this season. Take out the six earned runs in 1 ⅔ innings, and his ERA sits at 3.72 in three of his first four starts.

The first start back home in the year was a little tough on John Klein as he battled through jitters. Now that they are out of his system, things are clicking into place against opponents.

“A lot of it has just been executing off-speed below the zone,” Klein said regarding what’s been out of place. “Obviously, fastball is a big piece of my game, so get in zone with that, and then leave the zone with off-speed once we get to two strikes.”

“I think he made some really good adjustments,” said Saints pitching coach Ryan Ricci. “I think he is a guy that throws really hard, gets down the mound fast, and I think sometimes that can speed up on him a little bit, and then all of a sudden you see the fastball is up out of the zone, off-speeds get up and out of the zone as well.”

Klein’s fastball may arguably be the best weapon in his arsenal to start the season. It topped out at 97.5 MPH in Wednesday’s outing. However, he’s relied heavily on the pitch, and hitters can guess when it’s coming. As a result, he gave up two home runs towards the end of his start.

“Guys just hit the fastball,” he said. “Everyone knows I’m going to throw the fastball. If I go back and throw it again, it’s still going to be a fastball. So just tip your cap in that part of the game and try to limit the balls that go out of the yard.”

Noah Cardenas and Klein’s coaches have noticed the work Klein has put into improving his game on the mound. During his first outing at CHS Field, he had been making substantial adjustments to the hitters that turned out to be a disadvantage for him. Klein allowed four hits, including three home runs, and three walks before his early exit.

In his two outings since then, he’s scaled back his adjustments, and he’s learning to trust his stuff more frequently.

“The misses aren’t as big, and I think those hitters notice that,” said Cardenas. “When the hitters see big misses, it eliminates pitches, makes hitting a little bit easier. I think with him and these misses being smaller, I think it’s been really effective for him to use those other pitches and get those other pitches going.”

“I think the last time he made a better adjustment of getting the off-speed pitches down,” Ricci, his pitching coach, said, “giving them another offering, and something to think of to keep them off the fastball a little bit.”

The next step in Klein’s improvement is working to keep his velocity up as his outing progresses. He was touching 96, 97 MPH in the first two outings, but as he progressed in the third and fourth outings, it dropped closer to 94, 95 MPH.

“A lot of it is just mechanically, got gas at the end a little bit with a little warmer day than we’ve had, maybe that had something to do with it,” Klein said Wednesday. “But feeling great overall, so just ready to keep building off today.”

“John’s been working super hard on that, and I think his last two outings have been really, they’ve shown just the hard work he’s put in to be in the zone early,” said Cardenas. “And his stuff is so good that it plays with any batter. I’ll take his stuff over anyone else’s, it’s just been fun to catch.”

As things stand, Klein will continue on the pitch four innings every four days plan, which some have dubbed ‘the Travis Adams plan.’ With Minnesota’s limited starting pitching depth, they want to keep arms such as Kelin, Andrew Morris, and Connor Prielipp stretched out in case they need to go beyond Zebby Matthews for starting depth.

Many hope to see John Klein succeed as the hometown kid in the Twins bullpen, like Louis Varland. Their wait will be worth it as he works out the early-season mistakes with his fastball and learns to trust his off-speed stuff more against hitters.