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Doc, I wonder if Iwakuma is one of those guys who just doesn't have any "tells" in his windup and release, if every pitch looks pretty darn like every other. Or perhaps he throws every pitch from a couple of release points. But I'll bet on the first idea.
If the heater and the change and the shuuto ALL look the same as they leave his hand, then the batter has completely lost the battle for the bottom half of the strike zone, already. Add his slurvey offerings and it becomes a Bad Day at Black Rock for MLB-slugger types.
There's an interesting dilemma when facing 'Kuma. His most hittable offering is his fastball, down in the zone, because it is relatively pedestrian. But I think that we're seeing a place where batters are laying off (or will) anything down, because his shutto and change are such secret-type weapons. Which means they are LESS likely to hit the one pitch he throws that they might square pretty consistently.
If Felix is the King does that make Iwakuma the Shogun?
BTW, I have had wonderful images lately of Felix and 'Kuma meeting in some dark place after their back-to-back starts and sharing whatever magical potions, incantations and bewitching powers they've developed independently of each other.
I would have said that Iwakuma was Radagast to Felix's Gandalf, but I have a better literary analogy.
How about Felix and Iwakuma as Shakespeare's Witches/Weird Sisters in Macbeth.
In some dark corner of Safeco's catacombs (Probably in left-center field, where fly balls use to go to die and where you might also find the grotesquely dead souls of Ryan's bat, Raul's glove and Andino's career) Felix and 'Kuma meet over bubbling broth:
Both: Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Felix: When shall we two meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
'Kuma: When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
Felix: Scorpion's sting, eye of newt, tongue of adder
Such are the things of my mystical power
'Kuma: Serpent's scale, sting of wasp and Shinto prayer
Conjured as one, calls Shuuto's spirit.
Felix: All hail, Iwa-San! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
Kuma: All hail, Felix! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
Both: Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Then they laugh diabolically!
What a scene that would be (with apologies to The Bard, of course)! One worthy of Kurosawa!