Korean pitchers have control issues again against Japan

Korean reliever Kim Young-woo returns to the dugout after allowing a go-ahead run to Japan during the teams’ exhibition baseball game at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo on Nov. 16, 2025. [YONHAP]

 
The second exhibition baseball game between Korea and Japan in Tokyo on Sunday played out much the same way as the first one from the previous day.
 
For the second straight day, Korea scored three runs first, and Japan immediately answered with three runs in the next half inning by capitalizing on the shaky opposing bullpen.
 
 
In losing Saturday’s game 11-4, six Korean relievers issued eight walks and hit two batters in 4 2/3 innings.
 
The bullpen once again couldn’t find the zone Sunday. Six pitchers out of the bullpen gave up 11 walks against only six hits over the final six innings. Only the solo homer by Kim Ju-won with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning allowed Korea to salvage a 7-7 tie at Tokyo Dome, where extra innings were not in play.
 
Counting starting pitchers in both games, Korea handed out 21 walks in 17 innings overall, a ghastly total that doesn’t bode well for the team’s prospects at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in March next year.
 
The KBO scheduled these exhibition games, along with two earlier games against the Czech Republic last weekend in Seoul, to give the domestic league’s young players an early taste of international baseball under a different set of rules.
 

Korean reliever Kim Young-woo returns to the dugout after allowing a go-ahead run to Japan during the teams’ exhibition baseball game at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo on Nov. 16, 2025. [YONHAP]

 
One noticeable difference between the KBO and WBC rules is the absence of the automated ball-strike system (ABS) in the latter. Pitchers who had grown accustomed to the fixed strike zone must adjust back to human umpire decisions.
 
And in the two games in Tokyo, Korean pitchers struggled against tight zones by home plate umpires, not getting calls on borderline pitches that might have been ruled strikes by the ABS.
  
Young fireballers who did not have control issues in the KBO suddenly started handing out free passes this weekend. In Sunday’s game, for instance, SSG Landers closer Jo Byeong-hyeon walked three batters in one inning of work — after walking more than two batters in a game just three times in 69 games this year.
 
It hurt Korea in particular that four of those walks Sunday came with the bases loaded. In situations when pitchers should have gone after hitters, they instead tried to nibble at the corners in futile attempts to get strike calls.
 

Korean reliever Jo Byeong-hyeon, right, reacts after giving up a bases-loaded walk to Ryota Isobata of Japan during the teams’ exhibition baseball game at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo on Nov. 16, 2025. [YONHAP]

 
Pitchers can only complain about umpires so much because the zone was at least consistent on Sunday, as Japanese pitchers issued seven walks themselves.
 
The difference was that Japanese relievers kept wiggling out of those jams and minimized damage, while their Korean counterparts compounded their problems with more walks.
 
After Saturday’s game, Korean manager Ryu Ji-hyun implored his pitchers, most of whom can throw hard, competitive fastballs, to start mixing in secondary pitches more and changing speeds to keep hitters honest.
 
But their pitch selection didn’t mean much Sunday when they couldn’t throw strikes with any consistency with any pitch.

Yonhap