baseball pitchers-pitch
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| ▲ Kiwoom Heroes starter Eric Jokisch pitches against the Kia Tigers during a Korea Baseball Organization regular season game at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on April 14, 2023, in this photo provided by the Heroes. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ Kiwoom Heroes starter An Woo-jin pitches against the Doosan Bears during a Korea Baseball Organization regular season game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on April 13, 2023, in this photo provided by the Heroes. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ Kiwoom Heroes starter Eric Jokisch speaks with reporters prior to a Korea Baseball Organization regular season game against the Kia Tigers at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on April 16, 2023. (Yonhap) |
baseball pitchers-pitch
Top KBO pitchers getting swept up in 'sweeper' talk
By Yoo Jee-ho
SEOUL, April 19 (Yonhap) -- To hear one of the top South Korean pitchers tell it, the "sweeper," a variation of the slider, is all the rage here.
However, one of his rotation mates, an American veteran, thinks the pitch, newly introduced in Major League Baseball's scoring system this season, may not be so effective in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) because of the way hitters typically swing here.
Statcast, which provides real-time information to MLB's website and television broadcasts, has started identifying the sweeper as a pitch type this season. Most famously, Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani threw that pitch to strike out his teammate Mike Trout to help Japan clinch its third World Baseball Classic title over the United States last month.
In simple terms, the sweeper is a pitch with more horizontal movements than the conventional slider. It has the sweeping action, moving from the third base side and toward the first base side when thrown by a right-handed pitcher, hence the moniker sweeper.
Kiwoom Heroes ace An Woo-jin, the reigning KBO strikeout king and the ERA champion, recently said he has been practicing the new pitch, though it remains a work in progress for him.
"That's all pitchers talk about these days; how to throw a sweeper," An said. "Guys who like watching Ohtani pitch have tried to teach me the grip."
And one of those pitchers is An's left-handed rotation mate, Eric Jokisch, a five-year KBO veteran.
In a recent pregame conversation with reporters, Jokisch said he has been reading a great deal about the sweeper and watching clips on social media to study the new pitch.
Jokisch said he even threw five sweepers each in two different games last season.
"A couple of foul balls, a couple of little end-of-the-bat groundouts, but didn't do that much for me," Jokisch said. "It got a few outs but I felt like it didn't make my elbow feel very good. And I tried to do it in the middle of the season instead of building it up in the offseason. So I didn't feel like it really fit with my other stuff that much and it wasn't really worth it for me."
Jokisch also had a theory on why the sweeper wouldn't necessarily work here as well as in the MLB.
"In America, most swings are big, and hitters have to decide early and swing early. So they don't see the break and they miss it," Jokisch said. "Here, there's a lot of guys that have shorter swings, and so they can see the bigger movement earlier and can foul it off. That's what my problem was. They would foul it off."
Jokisch said while the curveball and the normal slider come off the middle finger, the sweeper is delivered off the index finger.
"Some guys think curveball, and some guys think cutter. It's just how mentally you can think while throwing as hard as you can to get it to come off the (index) finger," Jokisch added. "The sweeper is something that, because of the way it spins, I don't know how it works. I'm not that scientific. But something about the way it spins, you can throw from a higher arm angle."
Last Friday, An went up against the pitcher who throws the best sweeper in the KBO today: NC Dinos right-hander Erick Fedde.
An was the hard-luck loser despite holding the Dinos to a run in seven innings and striking out 12. Fedde struck out 10 in eight shutout innings.
"The next time we play the Dinos, maybe I will have a chance to ask him about the sweeper," An said.
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