Cardinals' Kim Kwang-hyun betrayed by reliable pitch
St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Kwang-Hyun Kim collects himself on the mound after giving up a solo home run to Pittsburgh Pirates' Jose Osuna during the the third inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Saturday. / AP-Yonhap
For St. Louis Cardinals' starter Kim Kwang-hyun, the four-seam fastball had been his most trusted pitch. Opponents had hit just .122 off Kim's four-seamer, the lowest in the majors.
But against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday in Pittsburgh, a couple of mislocated fastballs did Kim in, as he labored through the worst start of his rookie season.
Kim gave up four earned runs on six hits, including two home runs, in 5 1/3 innings at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Kim was pulled with a 3-0 Pittsburgh lead, and the bullpen let in an inherited runner. But the Cardinals' bats bailed Kim out with a five-run seventh for a 5-4 victory, as the South Korean lefty remained a perfect 2-0 for the season. His ERA took a beating, though, rising from 0.63 to 1.59.
Kim entered this game working on 24 consecutive innings without an earned run allowed, and it came to an abrupt halt with one out in the first inning, courtesy of a solo home run by Ke'Bryan Hayes.
Kim had a 0-2 count on Hayes after a curveball and a slider but left his 90.2 mile per hour four-seam fastball high in the zone. Hayes drove it straightaway center for the first long ball off Kim in more than a month.
Kim surrendered another solo home run in the third, this time to Jose Osuna on a hanging curveball. The final blow against Kim came in the sixth inning, when he left an 89.7 mph fastball on the inner part of the plate against Colin Moran, who sent it back up the middle for a single to put the Pirates up 3-0.
Kim averaged 89.4 mph with his four-seamer on Saturday, slightly below his season average of 89.9. He threw 53 fastballs but generated only one whiff on 21 swings for a 5 percent whiff rate. His season average in that category was 15.3 percent.
The Pirates made some hard contact on those four-seamers, too, with an average exit velocity of 91.7 mph. The season average against Kim was 87.2 mph before Saturday. (AP)