Tonight's (July 16) games at Jamsil and Moonhak Stadiums were indeed rained out as games usually are these days. The KBO is not shy about cancelling games as they reserve September for playing them. Septembers are pretty pleasant in Korea and this is probably a good tactic on the KBO's part.
SK has been victim to 17 cancelled games and are fighting to stay in the top 3 in the standings. Needless to say, all these rescheduled games will create havoc in September when it comes to the playoff seeding picture.
SK has 2 wins and 8 losses in its last 10 games, and has by the grace of God/Allah/Buddah been spared from playing due to rain since last Tuesday, a typical 2-0 shut out loss to LG that helped LG stay in the top 4 and didn't help SK at all.
September ball is great in Korea due to the end of the tortuous heat and humidity in the country during July and August. But the KBO reschedules games at random during this time, with very few actual series' being played. Baseball is a game of habit, where players get into the rhythm of anticipating their at-bats or starting games as a pitcher. This system of re-scheduling cancelled games all at once is inherently a flawed system.
New Foreign Faces
Teams have added a few new imports to their rosters in recent weeks. SK canned Jim Magrane and brought in righty Brian Gordon, the Lions ditched struggling slugger Ryan Garko and joined the other KBO teams by bringing in another foreign arm with Doug Mathis, and former part time Angels/Pirates reliever Chris Bootcheck was brought in to replace Brian Corey in Busan with the Lotte Giants.
These rain cancellations will have an effect in easing the new dudes into the league. Will it have a positive effect, in that they can study the batters of the league, get accustomed to the new culture and surroundings, and generally be more prepared? Or will the time off lead to rust and discontentment. All of these new pitchers are 30 or close.
Bootcheck will a giant for real, standing 6'5'' and even taller on the mound. And he is off to a good start grabbing a win in his debut against a hard hitting LG team. He only needed 88 pitches to retire 16 batters and only let in a run in the 10 to 6 Lotte win.
Ben Gordon will be eased into the league by being put up to start against 2-7, 4.30 Hanhwa starter Yang Hoon on Sunday. And Doug Mathis has yet to pitch in the KBO.
Goodbye Statiz.co.kr
The KBO is a great league, but its control over its stats is a big issue. And our beloved Korean baseball stat base statiz.co.kr has been taken offline. It's unnamed operator wrote a huge piece explaining why it had to be done at their website. He cites copyright issues and Korean pro-baseball stats control. Everyone hopes this site and others like it will go back online.
www.statiz.co.kr
1 comment:
I shed a tear every time I go to Statiz and see that its down. It was a great site for KBO junkies like us.
Post a Comment