Editor’s note: The Orioles designated Kimbrel for assignment Wednesday, likely ending his stint in Baltimore.
There was a time when Craig Kimbrel allowed seven runs in a single season. That was 2012, the second of the right-hander’s string of All-Star campaigns, the beginning of a dominant career that shot him up the all-time saves leaderboard and into Hall of Fame consideration.
But, again, that was 12 years ago.
On Tuesday, in the year 2024, the 36-year-old Kimbrel allowed a career-high six runs in one outing. He has lost his velocity over the years and has now lost his command too.
The Orioles signed Kimbrel to a $13 million contract this offseason only to watch him fall out of the closer role and collapse in the second half of the year. Tuesday appeared to be his nadir.
Kimbrel, who said through a team spokesperson he would talk with media Wednesday rather than after Tuesday’s game, put together a stretch of dominance in the first half. But since July 14, the day before the break, Kimbrel’s year has taken a turn for the worse — and without any sign of a turnaround, there can be little trust in his ability to pitch in the postseason.
His numbers in that time tell the story: 18 innings, 23 hits, 17 walks and 23 earned runs.
He entered the year determined to continue his climb along the all-time saves leaderboard, and with 23 — mostly from the first half — he did so. Kimbrel is fifth with 440. But over the last two months Kimbrel has declined to a point where it’s not out of the realm of reality to wonder if 440 is the number with which he will end his career.
“I had a tough time trying to find a spot for him on the road trip,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “He didn’t pitch for a week. ... I was hoping he could just get out of the inning, and unfortunately, there was some fatigue there at the end. The velo started getting down a little bit. Normally, he’s not out there for that long. In that type of game, I just didn’t want to use anybody else at that point, so I had to get [Matt] Bowman up. That wasn’t his normal stuff there at the end.”
Kimbrel’s outing started routinely. Grant McCray’s single bounced through the left side of the infield with one out.
Then came the spiral: A walk and a sacrifice bunt that didn’t result in an out but brought home a run. Then another walk. A strikeout helped but, with two gone, LaMonte Wade Jr. singled and Heliot Ramos doubled.
That was it for Kimbrel, although Bowman conceded a two-run single that saddled Kimbrel with six runs on his ledger.
It was a week ago, but in the dugout at Fenway Park in Boston, Kimbrel identified much of what has gone wrong lately.
“You just can’t miss down the middle,” Kimbrel said. “I can’t say I haven’t been missing down the middle, but there’s a fine line in between pitches. When you’re throwing 99 [mph] and a guy is sitting 99 and you have a breaking ball, it’s a little different than if a guy is sitting 93-94 or 92-93 and then you have the same breaking ball. It just gives them a little bit more time to react. The ball is not by them when they pick up the pitch and things like that. So it’s just pitching accordingly. I can still pitch with it. It’s just different.”
Kimbrel’s fastball, of course, is not the 99 mph blazer of days long past. Entering Tuesday, Kimbrel’s four-seamer averaged 93.9 mph, down from 95.8 mph just last year.
His walk rate is its highest since 2020, and 42.9% of players entering Tuesday made hard contact (95-mph exit velocity or faster) when they connected. Kimbrel doesn’t get batters to swing at pitches out of the strike zone anymore. He sits in the bottom 1% of the majors with a 22.1% chase rate, and his ground ball rate is in the bottom 3%.
And stolen bases don’t help, either. Since July 14, Kimbrel has allowed 11.
“I think if we go back and we just kind of look over the innings when I struggle, a lot of times it’s when I get guys on, guys start moving around, hits fall in and one thing leads to another and just not being able to get that strikeout when I need it,” Kimbrel said last week.
If this is the end, Kimbrel isn’t riding off into the sunset in peace. A once-great reliever has been buffeted by opposing hitters for months. This hasn’t been easy — for Kimbrel or for those watching.
