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We've been complaining that Iwakuma-san was due to fall out of dreamland and tumble back to earth.  You bet, he's got 5-6K stuff, and excellent command, but ... 8K+ per game?  Nada.

But he's got a dangerous split, you say.  

Well ... every MLB starter, who fans 5 or 6 men per game, has dangerous stuff.  Iwakuma's arsenal seems awfully pedestrian for him to be striking out 8 per game after Friday, he's got 53 whuffs in 53.0 innings.  

His stuff isn't remarkably different from Ricky Nolasco's ... 90 fastball, solid slider, good split.

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Samurai Moment

You've seen the old Japanese language films. Two samurai step out in the street. They lowered one brow, raised the other, and glared into each other's souls, as it were.

You could see what they were thinking in their eyes. The glare-challenges volleyed back and forth silently, first one man having the upper hand, then the other. Suddenly one sheathed his katana, turned and walked away respectfully.  Both men knew who would win.

Our NPB friends have told us that the pre-at-bat staredown is a big part of the entertainment in their game. I never got what they were saying, until Friday night.

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First Inning, Yoenis Cespedes

Blowers made some offhand remark about Iwakuma's pitchability.  Something about, when it comes to knowing what the batter wants him to throw, Iwakuma is as good as it gets.  He didn't fully grok it either; he and Rizzs cast about the rest of the game trying to pinpoint his special gift.

We talk about pitchability plenty. For some reason, it grokked this time – I think because Blowers as a hitter was sizing Iwakuma up that way.  If a hitter is going up there worrying about the pitcher knowing what he's thinking, then there must be more substance than we gave it credit for ...

..........

I think it was the same at-bat, but I'm not sure. 

Iwakuma threw four baffling pitches. On a 2-2 count, a film came off the TV for Dr. D like a motocross driver ripping away a layer of visor. Cespedes was standing there confused - the confusion was on his face, in the limp way he took his stance. We realized with the cold certainty of death that WBC-san was going to throw a high fastball by him.

Iwakuma came letter high with a fastball. Cespedes swung hour late and the inning was over.

From there on, Dr. D watched transfixed as WBC-san crossed up one hitter after another.  Watching him, the fog lifted as to what MLB batters are expecting on each pitch.  

We fancy that it has been lifting, also, for one Jesus Montero.

..........

*Batters are aggressive, starting the bats early, guessing fastball, or they are passive, confused, taking a long look before they pull the trigger.  You go fastball vs passive and offspeed vs aggressive.

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The Fangraphs Column

I doubt that were going to see, any time soon, a column that tells you how often a pitcher throws a fastball when the hitter is expecting offspeed.

Therefore you will see a natural tension, when you try to talk about pitchability to the average sabermetrician. Many such amigos take the attitude, "if it cannot be measured, it does not exist, or at least does not matter." (No word on how they measure, say, courage, or melancholy, or the butterfly effect.)  Dr. D is not accusing them of taking this attitude.  They explicitly state it, and proudly.

So the fact is, you will always see this facet of a baseball game:  MINIMIZED.  If we were to discuss it much, the scouts would be talking and we would be listening.  ;- )

...........

Pitchability is often a cliche.  But Hisashi Iwakuma is the living embodiment of pitchability, like Aphrodite is the personification of love.  (Hence the title image.)

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Pace

Iwakuma was taking 25+ seconds per pitch last year, obviously laboring on each pitch.  The last several games, he's known what he's going to do three pitches ahead of time, it seems.  I dunno if his pace has quickened much, but his decisiveness certainly has.

That's what was going on in his transition.  He hadn't "solved" the Powerful-But-Unreliable American approach to hitting.  Now he's completely solved it.

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Metrics

You could get started on measuring it by looking at SwStr%  on fastballs – compared to fastball velocity.

There are other ways you could start measuring it ... I once got destroyed by a computer at Rock-Paper-Scissors.  It annotated by saying, "You have followed the last XYZWAB sequence with G, over 90% of the time."  A super-computer* could do the same with pitchability.

Or you could have Hisashi Iwakuma explain it to you.  We saw it with our own eyes.  He knows what they're thinking out there.  He knows, pitch to pitch, whether a hitter will be starting his bat.  That's his edge.  It's the inverse of pitch tipping.

It sounds like a cliche.  But the reality is, that's how he gets 9 strikeouts per game with 5 strikeout stuff.  Once we realized what he was doing it, we realized that he was doing it routinely.

Could it be that Japanese hitters are much more familiar with this game, and that American hitters are naive with it?

Wouldn't have believed it, except tonight we watched him do it, pitch after pitch.  He's toying with them.  We'll do a pre-game next time, and we can watch him do it together.  It's hilarious!

He stands there and looks at the batter, and he knows whether the batter is starting the bat early on that particular swing.  It's an XBox cheat.

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.............

I'm showing my age, aren't I.  Nowadays, cell phones are "super-computers."