Dugout Chat: Kaylor Chafin ready to lead Texas A&M's bullpen resurgence

When Kaylor Chafin made the decision to return to Texas A&M for his senior season, the expectations were sky-high surrounding his left arm, which twirled nothing short of brilliance throughout the 2017 campaign as the Aggies advanced all the way to the College World Series due in large part to his dominance.

So far in 2018, he has not been nearly as effective as he was a year ago and the bullpen he was supposed to anchor has struggled mightily outside of closer Nolan Hoffman.

As he got roughed up early in the season, Chafin lost some of his confidence and started pressing, which only prolonged his struggles.

“I’m my toughest critic, so even the times I make good pitches and they get hits, I would get in my own head about things that were going on,” Chafin says in this week’s Dugout Chat. “Then that would hold me back for the rest of the outing or outings following that. I could never really get anything going because I was expecting myself to do 10 times better than what I was doing.”

Margaret Connett, TexAgs

Chafin has struggled out of the gates this season. He's thrown 26 innings for the Aggies in 2018, posting a 3.81 ERA.

Chafin is 2-0 on the season with a 3.81 ERA and 28 strikeouts in 26 innings pitched. Without him at his best, the Aggies have struggled to bridge the gap between their excellent starters and Hoffman, who has racked up seven saves in his first season wearing the maroon and white.

Senior Cason Sherrod has shown flashes of brilliance, but his ERA remains an inflated 4.45. Chandler Jozwiak, who began the season in the weekend rotation, has a respectable 3.89 ERA but has struggled out of the bullpen in SEC games. Freshman Asa Lacy has emerged as a late-inning guy of late, but even he has allowed at least a run in all three of his last conference appearances.

“The biggest piece to this whole thing is the bullpen,” says head coach Rob Childress. “Our starters have been consistently solid, we’ve got a finisher and we’ve got to be sure that we have a bridge. That’s the piece that’s caused some heartburn. We’ve got the pieces to have a great bridge — they’ve proven that before and they’re going to prove that again down the stretch.”

Chafin gave fans a taste of what he can be in Tuesday night’s win over Abilene Christian. Making his first start of the season, Chafin retired nine of the 10 batters he faced, striking out three in three scoreless innings. The outing brought back memories of the LSU series, when Chafin struck out five and allowed only one hit in 4.1 innings of relief.

“Against LSU he couldn’t have been any better and Tuesday night he was fabulous. That’s what he needed and that’s what we needed as a team,” Childress says. “I don’t think it’s mechanical, I think you can have paralysis by analysis. It’s all about his mental state, his confidence, his belief — I think at the end of the day that’s the most important thing anybody can have.”

Chafin says once he gets one clean inning under his belt, then he can settle in and put together a solid appearance. At 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, he thrives on adrenaline and energy on the mound, so once he starts pitching well it is easier for him to keep it going.

"I felt like I was able to get through a clean inning and then I got my energy going and the next inning was the same way," Chafin says of the LSU outing. "It was just getting the energy going in the right direction for me, and that’s what I live off of. I live off the competitive edge, and I can’t really have that if I’m struggling. So once I get that clean inning I can get it going.”

Chafin has been the victim of some bad luck as well. Last season he held opposing hitters to a .165 batting average, while this season they are hitting .305 off him. Even considering he has allowed more hard contact in 2018, that difference in opposing batting average is ridiculously high and will likely to come back down closer to the mean as the season moves along.

A few bloopers here and there finding gloves instead of grass like they did in 2017, and Chafin’s numbers could be significantly better.

“Sometimes you sit there and think about it,” Chafin says of the misfortune, “but other times you’re like, ‘Okay, the pitch before that I spiked a curveball. If I would have done it the proper way I would have had him out right there instead.’

“I’m still waiting on it to come back around to me.”

Says Childress: “When you get punched in the face it’s all about how you’re going to respond. Sometimes it feels like you’re doing everything right and it still doesn’t go your way. In Kaylor’s case, that’s been the situation."

Throughout the up-and-down season, though, Chafin has remained upbeat in the locker room and stoic on the mound. He has continued to work hard during the week and is just waiting for things to turn around.

“That’s the only thing you can do. This game is literally built on failure, so it’s just taking it and running with it,” Chafin says. “You’ve just got to keep going. You can’t sit there and lick your wounds and say ‘Woe is me.’ You just have to keep working hard and sooner or later it’s going to come.”

Nebraska products Logan Foster and Michael Helman consider Chafin to be “like an older brother” off the field, another example of the fifth-year senior’s leadership and value to the team.

“He’s a competitor,” Helman says. “I know he’s been pretty upset with how he’s been performing lately, but he’s told me, ‘I didn’t come back for this.’ He’s going to keep competing and it hasn’t gone his way so far, but I don’t care. He’s going to be a bulldog on the mound for us.”

Fellow lefty Dustin Saenz also looked sharp on Tuesday night, throwing three scoreless innings of his own against the Wildcats. He owns an impressive 1.59 ERA in 11.1 innings and, after turning heads in the fall with his electric repertoire, looks like he might be on the verge of carrying his stuff over to the real games.

"The younger guys are getting their feet wet, they’ve experienced the good and the bad and they’ve all handled it the right way," Chafin says. "I’m really proud of the way that they’ve handled both of them and so now it’s time to go. I feel like it’s that last stretch right here to make a push.”

Childress, whom Chafin calls “easily one of the best pitching coaches” in the country, is still trying to find the right formula to protect leads after the starter has exited the game. Hoffman has been used heavily of late, and finding one or two other options to complement him at the end of games will be crucial to the Aggies’ success as the postseason looms.

“No question about it I’m confident," Childress says of conquering the bullpen woes. "I’m not asking anybody to do anything they haven’t done before at an incredibly high level in the most pressure-packed games. That’s the special feeling about the whole thing.”

Childress has continued to call on Chafin in important situations, and even though he has not gotten the desired results to this point in the season, the Aggies are confident he can return to form before it is too late.

He will get a chance to build on his last outing this weekend as the Aggies travel to Starkville for a three-game series with Mississippi State, who is suddenly red-hot coming off a sweep of No. 3 Arkansas and a midweek win over Ole Miss.

“We’re very confident in what Kaylor can do,” Foster says. “I think Tuesday showed a little bit of who he was and gave him some of that confidence back. I think you’re going to see the old Chafin again soon and he’s going to keep coming all year long.