Description
Kia Tigers ace James Nail (31)'s sub-one-run ERA has been shattered.
Nail suffered his second loss of the season (7-2) after allowing five runs on nine hits (one home run) with nine strikeouts and one walk in six innings against the SSG Landers in Incheon on Wednesday. He raised his season ERA from 1.82 to 2.21. It is the first time this season that Nail's ERA has been in the double digits.
Nail relies on a combination of a two-seam, sweeper, and changeup that sits in the low 140s and high 150s. He also throws a four-seam, but his main weapons are his two-seam and sweeper. However, he hasn't looked good since July 7 against the Doosan Bears in Jamsil (6.1 innings, 8 hits, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts, 5 runs, 4 earned).
Doosan hitters and SSG hitters were hitting Nail's sweeper and two-seam trajectory quite a bit. In fact, according to Baseball Prospectus, the two-seam pitches against Doosan and SSG had BABIPs of 0.571 and 0.636, respectively. Sliders with sweepers were 0.250 and 0.071.
Before the game, SSG coach Lee admitted that Nail's sweepers are tricky to hit. That doesn't mean he's not a fastball pitcher, which makes him difficult for hitters to 바카라 target. However, Doosan and SSG batters have combined for 17 hits against Nail in 12.1 innings over the past two games.
His two-seam fastball has more movement than his sweeper, which makes it harder to hit, but he was able to time his fastball well today. SSG rookie Park Ji-hwan, who was the leadoff hitter on the day and hit a double off Nail in the fifth inning, also targeted Nail's two-seam. He admitted that he thought he could time Nail's two-seam.
Nail is still not the type of pitcher who gets hit hard. He doesn't make many mistakes and doesn't walk too many batters. He was fine today, except for the fifth inning. Han Yoo-seom's three-run homer in the fifth inning, which was the deciding run, was also a good hit, although the pitch was low to the body.
However, 14 games into the season, nine teams have accumulated enough data on Nail to have some formulas for how to approach him. SSG was facing Nail for the first time on this day, but they came out well prepared.
Kia was a bit thin in the starting lineup with Will Crowe and Lee Yi-ri out for the season. Cam Aldred is still an unproven card. Yoon Young-cheol and Hwang Dong-ha are a little less reliable to pitch long, consistent innings. In the end, the most important thing to minimize bullpen overload in the summer race is for Nail and Yang to pitch long innings reliably. However, Nail and Yang combined for five runs against SSG in games 12 and 13.
In the case of Nail, the question is how to find an exit strategy. The next issue is whether the ERA will be 1 or 2. I feel like I'm in a long race and I've reached a plateau.