*This article was originally published here on Medium.com*
While MLB Summer Camps are (trying to) ramp up, baseball continues across the ocean in Korea with the KBO. The action is heating up as teams approach 60 games played and tiers start to become more defined. The NC Dinos and Kiwoom Heroes sit atop the KBO standings and played game 2 of a 3 game series today.
Game 2 of the series between the NC Dinos and the Kiwoom Heroes was an interesting one as the Heroes pulled out the 7–4 victory. LHP Eric Jokisch was on the mound for the Heroes and posted 7 innings of 3-run ball as his offense poured in the runs. Jokisch has been arguably the best pitcher in the KBO thus far, posting a 1.48 ERA (1st), a 2.97 FIP (2nd), and 0.89 WHIP (2nd). With that expectation, you could say that he underperformed against NC, but the Dinos possess the most potent offense in the KBO and to limit them to 3 runs off of 1 HR is a pretty good start.
Jokisch was excellent over 6 of his 7 innings, with the 5th inning as the sole exception and when he allowed his 3 runs. Over the course of three batters, he allowed a triple to Aaron Altherr, walked Park Suk-min, and gave up a first-pitch HR to No Jin-hyuk to give NC their first 3 runs of the game.
The thing that has stood out to me about Jokisch in both of his starts that I’ve seen, is his ability to pound the strike zone. In his late May start and this one against NC, he posted a phenomenal strike rate of close to 70% and strong first-pitch strike rates, with 70% against NC. That’s reflected in his season-long BB% of 3.4%, lowest in the KBO among starting pitchers.
At his best, he’s working down in the zone with all 4 of his pitches, inducing a lot of ground balls. He was semi-successful on the ground ball department, allowing 8 groundouts versus 7 flyouts, mitigating the effect of those hard-hit grounders, but he did allow an HR and a triple to right-center, both of which came on pitches that were hung over the middle of the plate. That was a theme of his difficult 5th inning; Jokisch consistently missed up in the zone on the HR and when he walked Park. Beyond those two miscues, Jokisch hit his spots reliably and was able to induce multiple inning-ending double plays after allowing a single earlier in the inning.
Jokisch used all four of his pitches against NC, throwing his fastball the most at 51% of the time, around 87 mph. It’s a reliable pitch for him and pretty easy for him to put in the zone when he needed it. As the game went on, he did throw it up in the zone a little more and was not getting those calls on the top edge of the zone, but his other pitches picked up the slack. He didn’t really throw his changeup very much, only 7% of the time around 81 mph, instead choosing to rely more on his slider to RHH. He might have used it more if the Dinos had more LHH in the lineup, but it didn’t really matter.
Jokisch’s slider was an effective pitch, inducing 4 whiffs on the 20 times he threw it. At 82 mph, his slider has a good side-to-side breaking action and moves well late. His curveball is very similar to his slider and Jokisch threw it 18% of the time around 78 mph. The curveball has a lot of side to side movement, more of a slurve really, but it clearly also has more vertical break than his slider. Jokisch effectively used his curveball’s late sweeping action to steal outside strikes against RHH. Starting far away and breaking back to catch the outer corner, very few RHH were willing to take a swing at it. (Of course, he did allow the no-doubt HR on a curveball, but that one got hung over the middle of the plate).
Jokisch’s best combo of pitch is his slider and curveball and how similar they are. Paired with his fastball, it’s an effective 3-pitch combo, as well as his changeup when he needs a change of pace. Jokisch throws a lot of strikes and fastballs early in the count, relying on his slider/curveball combo later in the count to induce swings and misses/ground balls.
*Stats from FanGraphs.com, myKBO.com, and the KBO on ESPN broadcast*