The Post Season Record Is up to Subsidiary Pitchers

In the 2 games out of 3 pro baseball games on the 24th, face-to-face games of subsidiary starting pitchers were happened.

It is rare to see 2 games with face-to-face games of subsidiary starting pitchers at the end of the season. In the past they used to be ‘withdrawn halfway’ because of shortage of talent. It proves that the reliance to foreign pitchers got bigger.

In fact, foreign pitchers rise to power in Korean pro baseball especially in this season. Five out of the top 10 pitchers in wins are foreign pitchers including Kipper of KIA, who shares the first place in most wins with Song, Jin-Woo of Hanhwa. In ERA, Elvira (2.30) of Samsung and Lios (2.87) of KIA put their name on the 1st and 2nd in the list over Korean pitchers.

The common feature of the leading teams is to have ‘good’ subsidiary pitchers. There is a lefty Elvira, who is first in ERA and 5th in wins (13wins), in Samsung, and Kipper, who uses ‘colorful curve balls,’ and Lios, who recorded 7 consecutive wins out of 8 games and ERA of 1.80 after change from a closer to a starter, are leading the mound of KIA.

These two pitchers produced conjointly 29 wins, which are 41% of KIA’s 71 wins this season; so experts analyzed that there couldn’t be a blast of KIA without them.

Other than that, although it became difficult for Doosan to go to the post season due to silence of bats, it was a big help for Doosan that Ress and Cole led the mound.

Can the ‘subsidiary power,’ which showed power during the regular season, be continued? KIA already selected Kipper and Lios as the ‘one two punch’ to go to the post season. For Samsung, Lim, Chang-Yong and Elvira are the first and second starters.

However, it is the other agony of teams that rely on subsidiary pitchers that there were many cases that they failed while relying on subsidiary pitchers in the post season. In last year, Galvez of Samsung, who recorded 10 wins and 4 losses and ERA of 2.47 during the second half of the regular season only, collapsed giving up 10 points in 6 innings in 2 Korean Series games.

Because there is a big difference between subsidiary players, who consider the post season as ‘extra games’ and Korean players, who take it as a life and death problem, it is not sure whether the subsidiary pitchers play their games or not.

Sang-Soo Kim ssoo@donga.com