(Photo Credit: SB Nation)
When Ryan Borucki walked off the mound at Nationals Park July 27, all he knew to be true was the nature of his performance.
The Toronto Blue Jays left-hander and 2012 Mundelein High School graduate threw 29 pitches, 17 for strikes. Borucki faced six batters, allowing one hit and one walk. It had been one year to the day since his last appearance in a major league game.
The fact the 26-year-old picked up the win, his first since 2018, is a function of baseball’s randomness. Being on the mound, facing major league hitters, doing his part in a Blue Jays victory, that is not a function of chance.
Borucki’s appearance marked a milestone in his latest baseball comeback. It also provides another data point that Borucki, while slowed by injuries throughout his career, is not going anywhere. This time he may just be in the big leagues for good.
Jim Sakas recalls the story with a tone of reverence in his voice. It’s a frequent timbre when discussing one of his pupils, Ryan Borucki.
Sakas began working with Borucki over 10 years ago, when he was just entering high school. He helped Borucki develop an arsenal of pitches, although Sakas admits Borucki was born with a brilliant change up.
They were working out one winter at Slammers Academy in Lake Forest, Illinois while Borucki was in the minors. Sakas, who has done some bird dog scouting but is primarily a private pitching coach, had a stalker radar gun in his possession. They are the radar guns held by scouts sitting in the stands a few rows up from the field at games.
“He’s throwing 91-93 (MPH) so I go, ‘OK I’ve never seen anyone throw more than 93 on the radar,’” Sakas said. “Ryan goes, ‘you wanna bet?’”
The next pitch thrown by Borucki read 95 MPH on the gun.
“His dad (former minor leaguer Ray Borucki) says, ‘we’re going to put that gun away now,’” Sakas said.
Borucki debuted in the big leagues in 2018 as a starter. His 17 starts resulted in an impressive 3.87 ERA in 97 innings pitched. A deeper dive into his statistics reflect a pitcher who gets outs not by overpowering hitters, but by outthinking them—3.79 FIP, 1.321 WHIP, 6.2 K’s/9 IP. According to FanGraphs, Borucki threw his fastball 58.7% of the time in 2018 with an average velocity of 91.5 MPH. Not exactly Max Scherzer or Noah Syndergaard-type numbers, who throw regularly in the mid-to-upper 90’s.
But Sakas knows something about Borucki others don’t, that he is capable of throwing the ball harder.
“I read all these reports about him over the years, ‘Borucki is not overpowering, he’s 91-93 (MPH),’” Sakas said. “Ryan is very capable of being overpowering. He doesn’t choose to throw that hard.”
In 2019, Borucki was attempting to make the Blue Jays rotation out of training camp.
Facing the Detroit Tigers in late February, Sakas noticed Borucki reaching 95 MPH with his fastball. He broke camp with the team. But after two ineffective starts, he was shut down due to an elbow injury.
He never returned in 2019, eventually undergoing surgery last summer to remove bone spurs in his elbow.
Sakas is the son of a former major league scout and legendary Chicagoland pitching coach, Steve Sakas. He learned the game at the foot of his father, played collegiate baseball at Illinois State before embarking on his own coaching career. When someone is around the game for as long as Jim Sakas has, he develops his own ideas on how to best teach the game.
Sliders are not his favorite pitch to teach young pitchers.
“I do not discount the fact (the slider) is a great pitch but I just can’t put growth plates under that much stress,” Sakas said “I can’t put kids in that position and refuse to do it.”
Sakas said Borucki’s 2019 injury was the result of him throwing a slider.
“He wasn’t able to extend his left elbow (due to bone spurs). The spurs were the result of the slider and he was banging his elbow,” Sakas said.
According to FanGraphs, Borucki threw his slider 27.1% of the time in 2019.
In mid-February of this year, Borucki reported discomfort in his left elbow. It was the latest in a consistent stream of injuries for Borucki in his eight-year professional career.
In 2012, after being drafted by the Blue Jays in the 15th round, Borucki underwent Tommy John surgery on his left arm.
Shoulder stiffness knocked him out for most of 2015.
He began 2016 in high-A ball only to make his MLB debut two years later. By spring training 2020, it had been 17 months since his last victory.
Fortunately for Borucki, the February 2020 MRI revealed only elbow tightness. He gradually resumed throwing and was competing for a major league job when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the season.
When the season resumed in July, Borucki threw live bullpens and inter-squad scrimmages. There was one pitch missing from his repertoire.
The slider.
“I got rid of the slider,” Borucki told a group of reporters on July 11.
Borucki replaced the pitch with a cutter.
“I just think the cutter with the movement of my fastball really works well off my fastball,” he said. “I work inside the hitters really well and running it back in on them right off that same lane and try to jam guys, I think it’s a better pitch than the slider for me.”
When games resumed July 24, Borucki was put on Toronto’s taxi squad. On July 27, he was called up and immediately inserted into the Blue Jays game that night vs. the Nationals. His average fastball velocity of 94.1 MPH was a career best. He threw 27.6% cutters. No sliders.
Coming out of the bullpen in a ‘piggyback’ role is new for Borucki. Although expressing a preference to start again, he said whatever role best suits his team, he will adapt.
“I’m just here to pitch and help this team win ball games, whether its me starting or me coming out of the pen. Today I felt comfortable coming out of the pen,” Borucki said. “Obviously I’d like to be a starter but if they need me in this bullpen, I’ll be there.”
This past winter, former White Sox pitcher Neal Cotts hosted a Christmas Party.
Sakas was there. So was Borucki. They played ping-pong in Cotts’ basement. Sakas managed to win one game off of Borucki and put his racquet down, satisfied to earn one victory off his relentlessly-driven opponent.
“He’s the most competitive person I’ve ever met. Whether it’s ping-pong, golf or baseball. He’s coming after you. He’s not obsessed with it, he just loves to compete,” Sakas said. “I’ve been around pitchers my whole life and I’ve never seen anyone like Ryan.”
Sakas said he thinks Borucki is past his arm issues. Dropping the slider for the cutter will reduce stress. He’s throwing harder, making his secondary pitches, such as the change up, more effective.
Borucki’s natural competitive drive, along with a nurtured malleability as a big league pitcher, is why Sakas believes the best is yet to come from his prize pupil.
“I laugh when people say he doesn’t throw very hard. He’s a pure pitcher, a strike thrower,” Sakas said. “Right now, he’s throwing the best I’ve ever seen him throw. I think you’ll see him in an All-Star Game. He’s that good.”