RI's Michael King rises to the top with the Yankees

BOSTON — Michael King strolled into Fenway Park for this weekend series as one of baseball’s most dominant relief pitchers.

The Yankees are on a historic run atop the American League East in part thanks to the Warwick native and former Bishop Hendricken star. King was primed to face the Red Sox while enjoying the longest run of success in his professional career, one that could have him in contention for an All-Star selection later this month at Dodger Stadium.

New York entered with a superb 59-23 mark, lapping the division field by a full 14 games. Boston and Toronto are tied for second place at 45-37 while Toronto sits in fourth place at 45-38. King hasn’t been on a team that’s steamrolled its competition like this since he was the Rhode Island Gatorade Player of the Year in 2013, leading the Hawks to their second of back-to-back Interscholastic League championships.

“This year, we have absolutely no doubt and we have all the confidence in the world,” King said. “Whoever we’re facing, we’re going to win.”

King has played a key role in fostering that mentality. He’s morphed from a potential starter at the back end of the rotation into a powerful high-leverage reliever. Per FanGraphs, King ranks second in the big leagues among relief pitchers in Wins Above Replacement — teammate Clay Holmes is two spots back in fourth place.

“I’d say being on a winning team makes it a lot easier to pitch,” King said. “I’ve been put in a lot of situations that allow me to have success. It’s just going out there and doing my job pitch by pitch.”

King is 5-1 with a save in 27 appearances, posting a 2.27 earned-run average over 43⅔ innings pitched. Opposing hitters are batting just .191 against him and have clipped him for only three home runs in 171 plate appearances. He’s faced less than 37% of opposing hitters in low-leverage situations in 2022.

“I set a goal for this year to not care what role I was in,” King said. “I feel like last year I got caught up in wanting to be a starter really bad and wanting to pitch high-leverage really bad. And then when I got put into a low-leverage situation or I got bumped from the starting rotation or whatever it was, I felt like it affected my game.

“This year, I said, 'Whatever inning it is, whatever out it is, I’m going to do it to the best of my ability.' "

A deeper look reveals just how King has evolved into this current version of himself. Per Baseball Savant, he’s a top-15 pitcher in the game in both strike percentage and swing-and-miss percentage. King’s strikeouts per nine innings have jumped from 8.81 last season to 12.16 in 2022.

King also made adjustments to his pitch mix after steadily gaining confidence in his four-seam fastball and his slider. He’s throwing both of those pitches three times as often compared to last season — increases from 8.8% to 24.2% and 10.2% to 29.1%, respectively, per Baseball Savant.

King was drafted in the 12th round out of Boston College in 2016, largely thanks to a sinker that ran in on right-handed hitters — he's able to utilize other weapons at this point in his career.

“My first couple of years in the big leagues, I felt like I only had a sinker,” King said. “My slider had to work perfectly in the zone or be perfectly executed out of the zone.

“I didn’t really have a four-seamer. My changeup was decent. But I only had confidence in my sinker.”

King’s frequent displays of nastiness on the mound have caught the attention of Pitching Ninja, the popular Twitter account that features some of the best arms in the game. One of King’s sinkers in his Saturday outing at Cleveland made the cut for a rundown of top pitches thrown on that particular day. The account, which is run by FlatGround founder Rob Friedman, had more than 393,000 followers as of Thursday evening.

“It’s really cool to be able to get information from a guy like that and from people all around the league,” King said. “They have all the answers. I’m trying to get as many as I possibly can.”

bkoch@providencejournal.com    

On Twitter: @BillKoch25 

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI's Michael King rises to the top with the Yankees