What to expect from Ryan Borucki's debut

Ryan Borucki is the kind of player every big league team is looking to develop.

All he cost the Toronto Blue Jays was a 15th-round draft pick, an above-slot but ultimately modest signing bonus, and some patience — now he’s valuable, cheap, and controllable starting depth, with the potential to be much more.

Borucki is precisely the pitcher the Blue Jays lacked last year when they gave starts to the likes of Casey Lawrence, Cesar Valdez and Nick Tepesch. While the club deserves credit for getting the southpaw — who had both his 2013 and 2015 wiped out due to injury — to this point, the pertinent question has become what he has to offer now that he’s big-league ready.

So, what can we expect from Borucki as he makes his major-league debut on Tuesday night? Here are a couple of things to watch for from the Blue Jays’ eighth-ranked prospect:

Nothing overpowering

If Borucki impresses on Tuesday, it won’t be due to his ability to light up the radar gun. His fastball will hover around 90 mph with a few sub-90 heaters in there as well. The southpaw is primarily a fastball-changeup pitcher who uses changing speeds to get hitters out as opposed to raw velocity. It’s a style Blue Jays fans are intimately familiar with given their experience with Marco Estrada and Mark Buehrle.

Borucki’s third pitch is a slider, which is a relatively new addition to his repertoire as he used to spin a slow 12-6 curveball. To call it a strikeout pitch would be an exaggeration — Borucki doesn’t really have one of those — but it is improving and it’s enough of a threat that hitters have to keep it in mind.

The lefty’s 6.78 K/9 at the Triple-A level speaks to the fact that he won’t be wowing anyone with his raw stuff, but there’s more to pitching than sizzling heaters and breathtaking breaking balls.

Using the whole strike zone

With the two-seam action on his fastball, his below-average velocity, and a groundball rate that has been above 50 percent in the minor leagues, it would be reasonable to assume Borucki just likes to fill the bottom of the zone.

However, the 24-year-old is a strike thrower who uses all of the zone. His willingness to elevate the ball shows up in the matching 17.1 percent popup rates he’s managed both this year in Buffalo and last season in New Hampshire.

Borucki also has a willingness to go inside on right-handed hitters, making their lives significantly less comfortable — something he demonstrated in spring training action against Hanley Ramirez.

Working the zone from top to bottom and changing eye levels has helped Borucki induce a batted ball profile high on both popups and grounders — which has contributed to low BABIPs against (.236 in 2017 and .253 this season). Giving up relatively weak contact will be essential to Borucki’s success at the highest level considering he’s never going to rack up the K’s.

Coming in hot

Borucki’s last start was a complete-game shutout (of the seven inning variety due to minor-league doubleheader rules) where he allowed just four base runners — an effort that earned him an International League Player of the Week award.

Over his last five starts, Borucki has failed to pitch six innings just once, posting an ERA of 2.84 over 31.2 innings. Whether that’s an indication that he’s ready for the bigs or not remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that catching a pitcher on an upswing is preferable to the alternative.

A tough challenge

Although Borucki is legitimately promising, there’s still a pretty good chance he gets roughed up in his first outing. That’s because his opponent is the Astros — arguably the finest lefty bashing lineup in the business.

Houston has an MLB-best 122 wRC+ against southpaws with a very pretty .276/.345/.449 line to match. Things get even trickier for Borucki because he’s taking the hill at Minute Maid Park where the Crawford Boxes are very generous to power-hitting right-handers. As it happens, the Astros have quite a few of those.

So, Borucki couldn’t be in a tougher spot for his MLB debut. That doesn’t mean that he won’t have a good outing — and if he does it’ll be even more meaningful. On the other hand, don’t be surprised if his transition to big-league ball isn’t exactly spotless.

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