St. Louis Cardinals: Seung-Hwan Oh Providing Plenty of Relief

The St. Louis Cardinals took a chance in the international free agency market this offseason and are being rewarded by the impressive work of Seung-Hwan Oh in their bullpen.

“The Final Boss”

“Stone Buddha”

If you didn’t have any clue who I was referring to with those two nicknames six months ago, nobody (except for Korean Baseball League die-hards) would blame you.

Now, if you still don’t know who I’m talking about, I’ll just assume you’ve been living under a rock or something for the past couple of weeks.

Seung-Hwan Oh has given the Cardinals everything they could have hoped for so far in this young 2016 season.

As I type this on Wednesday, April 20, while patiently waiting out a rain delayed 7th inning of a 4-1 Cardinal lead over Chicago, Oh has yet to give up an earned run in a bullpen-best 7 2/3 innings pitched.

Oh has surrendered a single hit in the 28 batters he’s faced. That’s good for a .045 opponent batting average.

He’s struck out 13 batters in those 7 2/3 innings, and were it not for the five walks he’s surrendered, his WHIP would be much lower than the minuscule 0.78 that Oh currently boasts.

Other than Kevin Siegrist, who’s 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA of his own, Oh is the only man out of the Cardinal pen to record a win this year.

Both he and his buddy Siegrist lead the team with seven appearances through the club’s first 14 games.

Oh was almost equally dominant in spring training. Over 9 2/3 innings down in Florida, Oh posted a 1.86 ERA with a 0.62 WHIP while holding the opposition to a .152 average.

It seems as though the Cardinals were able to find yet another diamond in the rough, a tribute to the savvy methods of doing business that have made General Manager John Mozeliak one of the best in baseball.

The club has Oh, 33, signed in 2016 for $5 million, and possess an option on the Korean reliever for 2017 as well.

Oh was absolutely dominant pitching in Asia. He has more than 300 saves and a career ERA under 2.00 to prove that fact.

I have to admit, though, I wasn’t sure how his pitch repertoire would translate to Major League Baseball. All that I had heard was that Oh lacked a true “put away” pitch.

At best, I figured Oh to be a pitch-to-contact type of ground ball machine, similar to the likes of Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa, who’ve both pitched in Boston.

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Instead, Oh is proving that he can get swings and misses with any of the seemingly twelve different pitches that he throws.

Movement and deception are his most obvious assets. We all knew that coming in. What I didn’t know was that he had a low-to-mid-90’s fastball that he can spot on a dime.

Oh has an unshakable demeanor (hence, “Stone Budda”) and he doesn’t seem opposed to throwing in any situation, whether it’s in a 3-run deficit in the 6th or a one-run lead in the 8th.

With a guy that’s new to the league like Oh, it’s always wise to exercise some amount of skepticism as the league learns about what he’s trying to do.

It would only be natural for Oh’s K/9 to drop off a bit from the 15.26 rate that he’s currently at. I’m pretty sure he’s going to give up an earned run eventually this year, as well.

But all signs point towards Oh being a dominant arm for the rest of 2016 for St. Louis, and hopefully he’s around much longer than that.

He’s the perfect “final touch”, if you will, on what has developed into a very imposing bullpen in St. Louis.

Next: Time to start worrying about Waino?

The key, as it always seems to be, is going to be getting them a lead ahead of the sixth inning. Once that pre-requisite is filled, “The Final Boss” and Co have things on lock from there.