Inside the Phillies: Diekman struggling to find his form

ST. LOUIS - Jake Diekman sat in front of a computer in the visitors clubhouse at Busch Stadium Tuesday afternoon, alongside Phillies bullpen coach Rod Nichols. The lanky lefthander watched on a screen as the 2014 version of himself attacked hitters in the strike zone and walked off the mound after strike three.

"Last year," he said, "I was aggressive through the zone and I threw the ball violently, like: 'Hey, here it is. Good luck hitting it.' That's what my mentality was."

Amid an awful start to this season, Diekman is working to recapture the form he showed in his breakout 2014 campaign. The hard-throwing 28-year-old has struggled to throw strikes in the season's first 31/2 weeks. His 2.38 walks and hits per inning pitched was among the worst in baseball among relief pitchers entering the weekend.

Diekman's ineffectiveness has led Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg to use what had been his lone lefthanded reliever (Elvis Araujo was called up on Saturday) in lower-leverage situations. Diekman pitched the fifth and sixth innings of Tuesday's 11-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, needing a whopping 52 pitches to get six outs. He was asked to record two outs in the fifth inning of Thursday's 9-3 defeat.

Diekman has been working with Nichols to keep his right shoulder from flying open at the end of his delivery. That tendency has contributed to his lack of strikes. He doesn't watch video of recent outings - having identified the problems he is working to fix, he finds it counterproductive to dwell on the runs already surrendered. He has opted instead to study his appearances from last year.

"I mean, it's tough. There's a sense of urgency just to get this fixed," Diekman said of his April struggles. "But it takes one inning and your confidence, you're like, 'Oh, OK.' But the biggest thing is you can't waste pitches. You can't fall behind hitters. If you go right after them, good things will happen."

Among the most telling statistics of Diekman's April was that 10 of the 19 lefthanded batters he faced reached base. In just 92/3 innings, he allowed 11 runs (10 earned) on 14 hits with nine walks and 12 strikeouts. His average fastball velocity is down a bit - from 97.30 m.p.h. in April 2014 to 96.59 last month, according to PITCHf/x data - but that's not as much of a problem as his lack of execution. He's throwing 22.2 pitches per inning.

His 52 pitches Tuesday were by far the most he's thrown in a single outing as a major-leaguer. Forty pitches in 12/3 innings back in a September 2012 outing were his previous high.

Last season, when he became the first Phillies reliever to record 100 strikeouts (over 71 innings) since Al Holland in 1983, Diekman averaged 18.5 pitches per inning. He said he should be able to get out of an outing in 10 to 15 pitches.

"[There's] no way three outs should take me 36 pitches," he said in reference to Tuesday's outing. "There's no way six outs should take me [52] pitches. It's just about attacking the hitters, not getting in hitter's counts."

Diekman has been missing more with his fastball than his slider. He's used his change-up, which he worked on in spring training as another weapon against righthanded hitters, only 13 times, according to PITCHf/x.

"He's working on some things. I have a lot of confidence in what he can do," Sandberg said this past week. "I saw it last year.

"He's shown glimpses of his 97-, 98-m.p.h. fastball. I don't know whether he starts aiming the baseball just to throw a strike or whatever, but he goes down to 92, 93, and there's something wrong there where he just needs to get on that roll and trust his fastball and go with his good fastball.

"That's his money pitch. His breaking pitch is secondary after the hitters have seen the fastball numerous times."

Because he was the only lefthander for the first month of the season, Diekman was not locked into a one-inning setup role as he was last season.

Sandberg managed Diekman at triple-A Lehigh Valley. The manager said Diekman typically figures out his mechanics and gets into a groove the more he pitches.

The Phillies need that to happen soon.