MLB Seattle Mariners

Has Hisashi Iwakuma Been Lucky or Amazing This Season?

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Hisashi Iwakuma Seattle Mariners

Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

When a team is 27th in runs, 26th in batting average and 25th in on base and slugging percentage, it is hard to imagine that things are going too well for them. Yet, more than a month through the season, the Seattle Mariners sit at 16-19 with a bright future in front of them. Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak and Jesus Montero have all gotten off to slow starts but have all shown that they have the potential to turn into excellent hitters.

The other promising thing that the Mariners can take away from the first 35 games is the development of a second starter behind Felix Hernandez. Though the Mariners’ pitching rotation is still bleak (their opening day three through five starters each have ERAs over six), they have found an excellent duo atop their rotation in Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma. Iwakuma was a star in Japan before coming over to Seattle before the start of the 2012 season.

In his first season with the Mariners, Iwakuma was quite effective, going 9-5 with a 3.16 ERA and tallying 101 strikeouts in 125.1 innings across 16 starts and 14 more appearances out of the bullpen. This season, Iwakuma has been a completely different pitcher, going 3-1 with a 1.61 ERA and an American League leading 0.76 WHIP. To add to how impressive Iwakuma has been, he has quality starts in six of his seven appearances this season and has given up more than four hits in a start only twice this season.

But has Iwakuma’s success been an improvement in skill or has it been a healthy dose of good luck? A combination of better control and more than his fair share of good luck is probably the cause of his unsustainably low numbers. From Iwakuma’s standpoint, his ability to not walk batters has helped him considerably. Last season, Iwakuma walked 3.09 batters per nine innings, which according to FanGraphs is slightly above average. This season, Iwakuma is walking only 1.61 batters per nine innings, just below excellent.

While he is not walking batters, hitters need to make more contact. This is where Iwakuma’s luck comes into play. Opponents have a .186 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) against him. This is the second lowest in the league behind only Matt Harvey (who himself is having statistically one of the best starts in New York Mets history). With the average BABIP falling between .290 and .310, Iwakuma’s numbers will probably regress closer towards the mean.

At the end of the day, Iwakuma is having a remarkable season as he and his two other Japanese counterparts in Hiroki Kuroda and Yu Darvish are all having excellent seasons, all posting sub-3 ERAs and sub 1.1-WHIP’s through the first six weeks of the season. However, I would expect more balls in play to start dropping in for hits. Iwakuma takes on Dan Straily and the Oakland Athletics tonight at Safeco Field in Seattle, Wash. The first pitch is scheduled for 10:10 p.m. Eastern.

Brian Weidy is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @frostedweidies, “Like” his page on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.

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