O-Kei, Not This Guy, Again

So you've got Wang on Wednesday, Moose on Thursday and what? Kei Igawa on Friday? Igawa will be called up before Friday's game to pitch against the Detroit Tigers in a 7:05 game. I will never understand this move. The $46 million is 3-3 with a 3.86 ERA at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre. A 3.68 ERA in a league where Darrell Rasner is 4-0 with a 0.87 ERA and Ian Kennedy just threw 7+ innings of shutout, 1-hit ball leaves me very unimpressed. What leaves me even more unimpressed is the four walks in seven innings that he had in his last outing.

I didn't understand the Igawa signing when it happened and I don't understand it now. It was completely reactionary. Someone in the Yankees' organization said, "The Red Sox went out and bought themselves a Japanese pitcher. Now, we must do the same." The only problem was that their scouting on him was horribly off. If you look at his numbers and see that he led the league in his final year in Japan with 194 strikeouts, you might be impressed. However, most of those strikeouts came on high curveballs, his forte across the Pacific. The problem here is that he continues to throw that high curveball to get strike three and high curveball in Japanese translates to hanging curveball and English. Major League hitters are too good to let a curveball up in the zone go by them. Igawa's curve was good enough that the Japanese hitters had trouble with it, however, more sophisticated and talented hitters, like most Major Leaguers, will not ever be fooled by that pitch.

This is why his 3.86 ERA in the minors should be looked past. In the Minor Leagues, you have to look at how a pitcher has compiled his ERA, not what the exact number is. The way he has pitched will not yield the same result in the Majors as it has in the Minors, because Minor League hitters do miss that high curveball. When he pitches on Saturday, watch for the high curve and the fastball drifting high and away from righties off the plate. If he manages to get another start, I would be shocked.

- D. Spell