Waiting to pounce

I think the Tigers are much better than a .500 ball club but that's the team's record overall, we seem to be winning half our games every week, last week we were 3 and 3 and what do you wanna bet we'll do the same this week? (Since I wrote this on Monday, I already know that I would WIN that bet.) It seems to me like tigers, this team is lurking in the tall grass of the savannah just beyond pouncing range of the rest of the teams in the league. So the Wyverns are like Wild Boar; the Bears are like Buffalo; the Lions are like Lizards, (large monitor lizards - yum); the Giants are like Gazelles, (is it gazelles or gazelle?); the Twins are like Turtles, (the delicious kind that live in the ponds the Tigers swim in); and the Eagles are like Elephant Babies. Tigers eat elephant babies! They do!

I think it'll take some real effort on the part of the coach to improve morale on the team before they pounce, however. If this team were set loose they could win it all again. Right now they ARE playing like stalking tigers. Being very careful not to get noticed and although they're hungry for a good, fat kill, they seem more concerned right now about scaring the herd away.

Anyhoo,

June 1 - Lopez came into this one with a 1-4 record and an ERA of 4.79. He improved his ERA but didn't get the win. This was yet another game Lopez deserved to win but didn't. He pitched 5 1/3 giving up 5 hits and a run but striking out 4. Don't know why he was pulled. He was happily cruising along with a 2-0 lead until he was called for a balk. It was a mysterious call since he had been pitching most of the game with only a fraction of a second of discernable stoppage in his windup. The timing of it allowed a runner to advance to second and then score on the ensuing base hit. Otherwise Lopez would have left with a 2-0 lead. But the Tiger bullpen can blow ANY lead. It was 2-1 in the 7th when Son Young Min came in. He pitched GREAT! Gave up only one hit and struck out 3! Then he got hit by a ball hit up the middle and for the first time EVER I was sad to see him LEAVING the field. Why can't he get hit on the nights when he's blowing somebody's 4-run lead? NO! He's gotta get hit when he's got the other team baffled as to what's coming next. So on came Kwag Jung Cheol.

He didn't pitch badly. Well not badly for HIM. There was a blooper hit into no-man's-land in shallow right center that was NOT caught by three guys. As I was saying, team morale is important. It's sometimes the difference between "I got it" and "You get it" on a team. Here was an example. SOMEbody gets to that ball normally. Then with 2 outs and guys on 2nd and 3rd Kwag threw four pitches a couple feet out of the strike zone OBVIOUSLY having been told to walk the bases full. This is another one of those bonehead coaching plays that is more popular than it should be. It's done so that the third out can be made at any base. But it's done in the major leagues where pitchers can throw strikes. It should NEVER EVER be done when any member of the Kia Tiger bullpen is pitching. So with the bases loaded Kwag starts looking shakey. He throws a wild pitch that almost scores a run. Then the batter gets the count to 3 and 2. Or 2 and 3 here in Korea. Everybody in the building knows there's a batting practice fastball right down the middle coming because you don't want to walk in the winning run. BLAM base hit - 4-2. Lee Jong Beom was 2/4 and had the only RBI for the Tigers. It's always nice to see him hitting well. Nobody else hit though. The Lions bullpen sent out pitcher after pitcher with ERA's below 3! If Kia just had ONE relief pitcher like that we might win some of these bullpen battles! Let me rephrase that: if Kia just USED one.... We have them but they're not being used much. Final score: Lions 4 Tigers 2

June 2 - Brandon Knight against the winningest pitcher in the KBO, our very own Yang Hyun Jong. It's odd that even though he's got 8 wins his ERA is at 3.86. It's be nice to see that drop a little bit. How about a complete game shutout to lower it? For I think only the second time this year Jo left the starting pitcher in for the entire game and Yang fired a gem! 129 pitches in a 4-hitter that included 9 K's. Not much else to report here. Cha Il Mok got the 2 RBI's and went 2/4 on the night. For the second game in a row the Tigers got only 5 hits. But they didn't need any more than that because they didn't need to use their bullpen. I actually fell asleep while watching this game but I like the result! Final score: Kia 2 Samsung 0

June 3 - Colon on the mound with a perfect 1-0 record, (har), and an ERA of 5.74. He gave up 7 hits but only walked one in this one. The Lions got 2 runs on him but he struck out 5 batters. He was in trouble a bit but never looked too bad. A well earned victory for him. Choi Hee Seop who had 3 walks on Tuesday and 3 walks on Wednesday decided to swing his bat and went 3/4 with a homer, 2 RBI's and 3 runs scored. Lee Yong Gyu was 3/5 too and Kim Weon Seop went 1/2 with a homer, an RBI, a run and 2 walks. When Lee Yong Gyu and Kim Weon Seop get on base things happen. If you want to truly play "small ball" you have to utilize these two speedsters!

In the 7th inning Lee led off with a base hit. Then he stole second because Kim wasn't told to sac bunt. The throw to get him at second floated into center field so Lee went to 3rd. Kim worked a walk. Then he stole second and maintained his 100% stealing rate. While doing so Lee almost took off for home. I was hoping he would. I bet he'd have made it. They almost got a run off a hit and a walk! I just WISH coach Jo would stop telling Kim to bunt so much! Like he did in the 9th inning when he bunted Lee to second then he reached 3rd on Na's sac fly and Choi Hee Seop cranked one out of the park making the sac bunt yet another wasted at bat for Kim, one of the team's best players. Who knows what would have happened if Kim was allowed to hit? In the 4th Lee got an out so Kim HAD to hit because there was nobody to sacrifice bunt for. He got a home run! HEY he had 8 of them last year! It's such a waste to see him bunting! But maybe this pattern won't remain unnoticed by the coaching staff all season long. Final score: Kia 8 Samsung 3

June 4 - After taking 2 of 3 from the Lions, Kia swaggered into the thin air of Mok Dong to play the Heroe's, a team below them in the KBO standings. The ball was really flying in this one. The Tigers sent Jeon Tae Hyun out for the start. His 1-3 record and 5.76 ERA are remarkably similar to Lopez's even though Jeon is nowhere near as good a pitcher. Pitchers' numbers depend on a lot of things other than just their talent. Jeon gave up 6 hits and 3 walks in his 5 2/3 innings in this one. That's not bad. He did give up 2 runs both by way of the solo home run but at the end of the day he had the same record as Lopez with a lower ERA. Never would have predicted THAT! Choi Hee Seop went 3/3 in the game and STILL got 2 walks. In the 4th Kim Sun Bin almost got an inside-the-park homerun but he was held at third. I was nervous that he'd die there like so many have but Lee Jong Hwan homered him in. Then in the 5th Na Ji Weon hit a MONSTER 3-run job and he KNEW it! Clark hit two out for the other team but that wasn't enough. I won't mention the bullpen collapse because it didn't lose us the game and I like seeing coach Jo using some of the other guys. The final was: Kia 7 Nexen 4

June 5 - Ugh! Do I have to re-live this? Yoon Suk Min was the pitcher again. He's 4-2 this season with a 3.66 ERA. I went bowling with friends on this night. While waiting for everybody to show up I caught the first inning on the TV at the alley. The Tigers jumped out to a 4-0 lead on a pitcher named Ko Weon Joon, who is not bad! He's 2-2 but he's got a 2.16 ERA! We smoked his ERA in the FIRST inning! He threw 46 pitches and I thought for sure we'd just keep on shelling him. Either way a 4-0 lead should have been enough for Yoon since he doesn't give up that many runs a game. So in this amazing first inning the Tigers had 4 runs and still had no outs against them. With runners on 2nd and 3rd Kim Sun Bin hit a fly ball to right field. Na Ji Weon tagged up and started home. I thought he would have made it but he stopped. Lee Jong Hwan walked and bases were loaded. Hong Jae Ho, who had a nice bases loaded double for his first base hit in the KBO, came up. He hit a foul ball down the right field line. If the first or second baseman had caught it, Na probably could have run home, but they didn't get there. Actually at the time I was thinking they might just have slowed up and not tried for it. It turned out to be smart. Hong struck out and Lee Yong Gyu came up for the second time in the inning and grounded out. I thought it should have been 5-0 but was hopeful that this wouldn't hurt the Tigers' efforts on this day.

Yoon didn't look his best. He walked a guy in the first then two guys hit the ball solidly but right into Lee Yong Gyu's mitt. But in the 2nd they got to him. In a way that must have made OUR coach fall in love with the bunt again. With runners at 1st and 2nd the Nexen coach sac bunted them to 2nd and 3rd. Then they BOTH got home on a productive out and a Yoon wild pitch. I just hate to see that! So it was 4-3.

This game actually came down to one PITCH in my opinion. In the 5th inning Yoon gave up a leadoff single. Then the second batter was started off with a strike. The second pitch was better than the first but the ump didn't do anything. The announcer made a wind-sucking hissing noise, the crowd went silent, Yoon, the catcher and the batter were all waiting for the strike call but it never came. They showed a replay and it looked even better in slow mo. The announcers questioned it and Yoon shook his head but it was called a ball. Maybe the ump got something caught in his throat. Had the ump called it right it would have been a strike-out since the 4th pitch in the at-bat was a strike. Instead there was a stolen base and an RBI double to tie the game at 4-4. Yoon struck out the next two guys so if not for that non-call he would have been out of the inning with the 4-3 lead intact. Next guy comes up and gets a hit to make it 5-4 Nexen.

Yoon Suk Min is my favourite player so take this with a grain of salt if you will but he deserved a win on this night too. He had two strikes on 16 batters in the 7 innings he pitched in this game. He managed to get the 3rd strike 5 times but 6 guys got hits and 1 got a walk after Yoon had them down 2 strikes. It always seems to be that third strike that's the hardest! Before Yoon exited the Tigers made the game interesting by tying it at 5 on ANOTHER Kim Weon Seop solo homerun. But with Kia's bullpen a tie in the late innings is rarely interesting. Yoo Dong Hoon walked a couple and gave up a hit and it was 6-5 in no time. That was the final.

June 6 - I actually didn't watch this game. I think it might be the first of the season I have completely missed. And I'm kind of glad I did. This could be used as a template for most of the Tigers' losses this year. In fact scroll back to June 1st and read that. This was almost a carbon copy. Lopez came out and pitched well. He gave up 7 hits, 2 walks and 4 runs all in the 7th inning, which was his last. He had been cruising along with a 4-0 lead to that point. Then the bullpen took over and Kwag Jung Cheol gave up 2 hits and 2 walks in the 10th and, VOILA, another .500 week. The Tigers managed only 4 hits in this one so I suppose the Heroes deserved the win. Final: Heroes 5 Tigers 4

It was a better week for coaching. I noticed more people rounding 3rd without jamming on the brakes this week. I also saw what I believe to have been a hit and run attempt in the second inning of Wednesday's game. Granted it was with Choi and Cha who probably aren't the best candidates for this strategy and Choi DID get nailed at second since Cha didn't make contact with the pitch but maybe this is a work in progress. Also it's good to see the leadoff speed on the basepaths. But our losses came down to bad bullpen in this one so although the coach is the guy who makes the decision to bring in relief pitching, I don't feel that the coach was so much at fault this week. Which is nice. But I STILL made a sign that I'm bringing to the ball game tomorrow that says, Jo Bum Hyun --> Jo BUNT Hyun. Just in case.