Suk-min Yoon Earns Second Win of the Season in Norfolk

Saturday night, the Norfolk Tides faced the Pawtucket Pawsox. After losing the series opener Friday night, the Tides needed to bounce back in a big way and in a big way they did. The Tides’ key to victory was the performance of their starting pitcher, Suk-min Yoon.

Ten days after Yoon was forced to exit a game when he was hit in the knee with a line drive, Yoon stepped on the mound trying to pitch his second-straight strong outing in a row.

After Alexi Casilla batted in the first run of the game with an RBI single in the third inning, Yoon left a pitch up in the strike zone that Pawtucket’s leadoff batter pulled over the right field fence to tie the game at one. After that he was lights out, only allowing two more hits in his outing on Saturday.

Pitching seven complete innings, Yoon struck out five batters and only allowed six hits and one earned run. Thanks to two more runs that came off of an Xavier Paul RBI single and a Chris Marrero RBI double, Yoon recorded his second win of the season with the Norfolk Tides.

Despite getting off to a slow start this season, Yoon has settled down as of late. Ever since giving up four runs in 5.2 innings of work on May 14th, Yoon’s ERA has been decreasing with each game.

Where Yoon needs to improve is his pitching when runners are on base. When the bases are empty, Yoon is posting a 1.53 ERA. However, immediately when at least one batter gets on base that ERA skyrockets to 10.58. And, if these base runners are in scoring position it goes up again to an even worse 16.20.

Yoon needs to find a way to get out of jams and not panic so much; for example, when a runner is on second with nobody out. This is more of a mental fix than it is a mechanics issue.

If Yoon can continue to improve and continue to keep his ERA down especially when base runners are on, he may be brought up to help out the Baltimore Orioles later in the 2014 season.