.

First Inning, Cespedes

Okay, first four pitches:  

• Offspeed slider paints the black, freezes an aggressive Cespedes
• Fastball just off the plate, batter holds up, 1-1
• Fastball doubles up, jusssst off the plate, takes it, 2-1
• 82 slider breaks off the zone, Cespedes' achilles heel, garbage swing

After this pitch, Cespedes was humiliated and scared.  The location of the slider was textbook.  Looked like a fastball, broke RIGHT into the area that Cespedes can't handle.

More to the point:  Imagine you're Cespedes.  You've seen 4 pitches, none of them the signature Shuuto.  .. you've gotten two fastballs, but he "showed" them to you, not in the strike zone.

Offspeed-FB-FB-Offspeed embarrassment.  What now?  Shuuto?  Slider low-away?  Dr. D groks that Cespedes feared the slider low-away most...

Point is, you could see Cespedes' from CF.  It was perfectly obvious.  What did it look like to poker-champ Iwakuma?

Fifth pitch:

Look at the location?  Cespedes swung way behind, fanned badly, end of inning, Iwakuma strutted off.  U Can't Touch This -- on a middle-middle fastball to a dangerous HR hitter.

.

Sixth Inning, Norris

The first five pitches of the 6th were horrendous cross-ups for the A's.

Norris came to the plate, Iwakuma took the pause at the top, fired ... Norris launched the bat, saw it was a slider, and took a half position.  Well, a 1/8 position.   Easy poached strike, 79 MPH RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE.

0-1 count, Norris confused ... fastball out and over.  Norris is passive -- one pitch later!  He swings late, fouls it off.

0-2, now what?  (By the 6th, WBC-san had them well-and-truly terrified.)

Here comes a fastball outside, the 0-2 tease pitch, better foul it off ... NOPE.  

th his slider.

At 0-2, Barton quickly in the hole, couldn't possibly be humiliated with three taken strikes ... so here came a pitch that broke OFF the plate, out of reach.

.

Those were a few of my faves.  By the way, there's got to be some sabermetric category that Iwakuma has a ridiculous number in ... remember how Ichiro "broke" xBABIP and they had to rewrite the formula because of him?

Iwakuma, striking out 9 per game with the stuff he has, there's going to be something weird about his stats.  SwStr% per FBv, or OSwing %, or K/BB over weak BP STUFF, or BABIP, or most consistent runs prevented, or something.

It was always fun to watch WBC-san, but it wasn't as much fun as it's going to be.

Cheers,

Dr D

.