SEOUL-- By claiming their first eight games of the new season, the SSG Landers have shown they have the winning formula down pat.
They have scored more runs than anyone and allowed fewer runs than anyone in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO).
The Landers sit atop the KBO standings with a perfect 8-0 record, the longest winning streak in franchise history to begin a season. They are two wins away from matching the league record held by the 2003 Samsung Lions, which won 10 straight games to open that campaign.
The Landers have taken run prevention to an art form this season. They have a league-best 1.97 ERA and have held opponents to a league-low 42 hits over 73 innings. Their collective walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP) sits at a tidy 0.89.
No other team has a sub-2.00 ERA or a sub-1.00 WHIP. We are still in the "sample size being too small" territory, and those numbers are certainly unsustainable over a 144-game season. But what the Landers' starting pitchers have done, in particular, has been nothing short of brilliant.
Their starters have combined for a 0.92 ERA with five scoreless outings. Through Sunday's action, the Landers' rotation leads the league in innings pitched. Opponents have put up a meager .134/.198/.159 line against those starters, by far the lowest numbers across the board in the KBO.
Wilmer Font got the ball rolling by throwing nine perfect innings against the NC Dinos in his Opening Day start on April 2. He didn't get the credit for a perfect game because the Landers beat the Dinos 4-0 with all four runs coming in the top of the 10th, and reliever Kim Taek-hyeong closed out the game in the bottom of the 10th.
Font followed up that outing with six shutout innings against the Kia Tigers in a no-decision Friday.
Former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Kim Kwang-hyun marked his KBO return with six scoreless innings Saturday versus the same Tigers. Before him, veteran right-hander Noh Kyung-eun and the 20-year-old lefty Oh Won-seok each contributed a scoreless performance.
Ivan Nova, a one-time New York Yankees ace, has somehow been the weak link, as the only SSG starter to have allowed more than two runs in an outing this year. He served up three runs in five innings versus the KT Wiz last week.
On the other side of the ledger, the Landers are leading the KBO with a .272 batting average, .738 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS), 46 runs, 74 hits, 16 doubles and seven home runs. With runners in scoring position, they are batting a league-best .333 with an equally impressive .520 slugging percentage.
Freshly minted captain Han Yoo-seom is leading by example with a KBO-best 15 RBIs. Han and veteran third baseman Choi Jeong are tied for the team lead with 13 hits.
The red-hot offense will face a major test starting Tuesday with a three-game away series against the LG Twins, currently in second place at 7-1, at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. The Twins rank second behind the Landers in a few meaningful pitching categories.
The Twins' bullpen has been virtually unhittable. They have a 0.26 ERA with 34 strikeouts in 34 2/3 innings, all of them the best numbers in the KBO.
Source: Yonhap News Agency