Robert Stephenson entered Thursday night’s start coming off of his best start of the year and 11.1 innings with just one walk and 21 strikeouts spanning back into his previous start. The start he made last Friday, I wrote was the best I had ever seen him.
Stephenson has battled control issues for the last two seasons, but he had been working on things to try and find the control he once showed. The latest attempt was something he and pitching coach Jeff Fassero had been working with, slowing down his tempo. It’s been working and we may have seen the best start of his career on Thursday night against Mobile. The second batter of the game hit a dribbler to third base that didn’t even make it to the infield dirt, going for an infield single. That would be the only hit that Stephenson would allow over the course of eight innings.
Eight innings is the longest outing of the career for Stephenson, who had never topped seven innings previously. To top it off, he probably could have finished the game, needing just 87 pitches to get through eight innings, but the Blue Wahoos chose to go to the bullpen to finish things out. The right hander finished the game allowing just one hit, one walk and he struck out seven batters.
Over the last 19.2 innings pitched, Robert Stephenson has allowed just five hits and two walks without an earned run. He’s struck out 28 batters in the span. He’s been dominant, like he’s never been dominant before. He had a similar stretch in Dayton, also over 19.2 innings where he allowed 10 hits and four walks, but he allowed a run and had 25 strikeouts, but the current stretch has been even better. He ended the game with an ERA under 4.00 for the first time all season, dropping it down to 3.81 on the year.
Through the struggles with control, I’ve always held steady that when he finds the control he once showed, that’s all it would take and he’d be dominant at the snap of the fingers. It’s only been two great starts and almost another entire great start in this current run, but if he puts together another few starts like this the Reds will have to think long and hard about moving him up the ladder to Triple-A. It’s never been a stuff problem with Stephenson, so if he’s going to throw strikes at a high rate, there’s not too much reason to keep him in Pensacola.