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Nick Kingham: “I may just be low on the gas tank”

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AKRON, OH – Nick Kingham got the start for Altoona on Friday night in the third game of Eastern League Western Division Series against Akron, and things didn’t quite go as planned for the right-handed pitcher. Kingham ended up being lifted in the third inning after allowing four runs, fours hits, and four walks.

The hits were only singles – three in the second to score two runs and one in the third to bring home another two – but things just didn’t seem right from the get-go when he took the mound. None of his pitches were really finding the zone consistently, especially his fastball which never really got going.

“I saw it right away in the bullpen,” Altoona Pitching Coach Justin Meccage said. “It then showed up right away in the first inning.”

Kingham said that his body felt good and he was excited to get out on the mound, but then that four-pitch walk to the leadoff batter really set the tone for the rest of the start.

“From then on, I didn’t have it the whole night,” Kingham said about that first at-bat.

“I felt like it was coming out good, and I was hitting spots, but it was just nibbling right around the zone. The fastball just couldn’t find the zone, and they weren’t swinging at my off-speed. I felt like I was making some good off-speed pitches, and they just weren’t offering at it. It just didn’t go my way tonight.”

Kingham was able to locate a few breaking balls for strikes, especially on the outside edge to right-handed batters from what I noticed, but he was battling from behind in most counts because of the fastball command. Since they weren’t offering on his changeup, Kingham just couldn’t find the pitches and location to get him out of the third inning.

Meccage brought up his last start in Richmond this past Sunday when Kingham was perfect through four innings and got the first out of the fifth, then everything just kind of went south in a hurry after a triple. A couple of walks later in that inning, Kingham allowed a grand slam and six runs.

In bringing up that start, it seems like Kingham may be beginning to run out of gas in the 2016 season. Honestly, though, who could blame him? He began throwing almost a year ago, on September 16th of last year, coming back from the Tommy John surgery, and he has thrown for practically the whole year straight, ramping it up from that point until now – pitching in a playoff game for the Curve.

“It shouldn’t be as hard as it is right now for me, but for these last two outings, things just weren’t clicking,” Kingham said after the game. “I don’t know if I’m just gassed mentally or physically. Mentally, I’m fine. I’m getting after it, my mentality is good, and I’m competing. I don’t know if the body is there right now, but I may just be low on the gas tank.”

When you compare Kingham to two other high-profile pitchers who came back from Tommy John surgery — Jameson Taillon and Clay Holmes — Kingham has pitched well beyond the innings and pitch counts that those guys were able to get to in their comeback year.

Last year, Clay Holmes got to five innings twice, once in the GCL and twice for the Marauders, before his innings were limited again. Altogether, Holmes 36.1 innings of competitive baseball last season, with none of those innings being considered very high stress innings.

Taillon, who began his comeback from Tommy John surgery last year, as well, did not record any official innings before being shut down because of the hernia, although he did make several starts in Extended Spring Training,

For comparisons sake, Taillon had his surgery in April of 2014, and he ramped it up to five innings in Extended Spring Training last June (14 months) before getting injured again. Holmes had his surgery in March of 2014 before getting to five innings in July of last year (16 months). Neither Taillon or Holmes got to the point of throwing six innings the year after their respective surgeries.

Kingham has thrown five innings multiple times and six innings twice. He has now thrown 48.2 innings this season.

“It’s probably that transition to competing mode and getting out of that rehab mode,” Meccage said. “He hasn’t competed in games that really matter in 16 or 18 months. These last two games that he’s pitched in, the games have mattered.

“It’s hard enough for a guy that has pitched all year, let alone a guy that has just pitched competitively for the past few weeks.”

I was able to sit down with Clay Holmes to talk about the rehab process, and he provided some great insight about coming back from Tommy John surgery and the rehab process. I thought that his response speaks for itself, so here is what he said:

“It’s a tough thing. He’s in a spot where he’s been throwing since the middle of last year, and that’s how it was for me. You don’t have an off-season. You come back here this whole year, and you’re throwing. You have to go through the rehab process and build up, but it puts you in a spot where – at this point in the year – you’ve been pitching for so long that your body needs a rest, and your arm needs a break. It’s a grind to get through that. Being able to go out there and give it all you have is the biggest thing. Getting back in games and getting his feet under him is huge. It’s hard for anybody to be at the top of their game right now at this point in the rehab process just because the arm is so tired. Location suffers. Your stuff is messed up. It’s not easy for sure.

“You see it with everybody [who goes through the rehab process]. You reach a point where you need a break. As a competitor, it’s hard to not want to put yourself out there. Coming back from the rehab process, you want to finish the year. You want to go as long as you can, but there is a point where enough is enough. You’ve thrown so much that you’re not really accomplishing anything else. It’s the point that I got to last year. Everybody is the same. You just get to the point where you’ve done and you’ve accomplished what you had to do, and it’s just time for a break.”

As you can see, the whole process is not as easy as some of us make it out to be from behind the keyboard. Rehab is a grind. These guys essentially lose their off-seasons. At some point, there has to be a tipping point, and that is a reason why you will sometimes see these rehab players start to struggle towards the end of their comeback seasons.

For Kingham, his average fastball velocity has been a little on the low side in his return, anywhere between 90-94 MPH and sitting usually around 92 MPH. Before the surgery, he was between 93-96 MPH, but Meccage said that isn’t a concern, as it usually will take some time to get that velocity all the way back after a year of rehab.

Ultimately, I wouldn’t be too concerned about Kingham faltering in his last two starts for the Curve. The most important thing for him is to remain healthy, and he continues to say that everything feels really good health-wise. You’re going to have ups-and-downs when returning after such a long time off. Unfortunately, Friday night was one of those downs for Kingham.

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