Why NC left 155km first choice Young Gun to finish the game
Ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball… The pitching struggles were intense. But the bench of the NC Dinos of the Korean Baseball Organization kept fireballer Shin Young-woo (20) on the mound until the end.
NC lost 6-10 against the LG Twins at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on May 25. The loss was their third straight and dropped them to fifth place.
Yong-jun Lee made his second start of the season after being designated for assignment due to left elbow muscle fatigue in foreign pitcher Daniel Castano. Yong-jun made his first start of the season on April 19 against the Changwon KIA and pitched five innings, allowing one run on four hits with two walks and four strikeouts. Castano, who was retroactively placed on the disabled list on May 15, was eligible to return that day, but Yong-jun was given one more chance. Castano will make his next start on June 26th.
Lee Yong-joon was supposed to show his old Kia form once again. However, expectations were dashed in the first inning. Yoo gave up a leadoff single to Hong Chang-ki in the first inning on an error by first baseman Davidson, but retired the next three batters. However, he gave up a leadoff walk to Park Dong-won, a double to Moon Bo-kyung, a single to Oh Ji-hwan, and a walk to Koo Bon-hyeok to load the bases. With the bases loaded and the game tied at 1-1, Heo Do-hwan hit a three-run double. Hong Chang-ki gave up a double to center field, giving up five runs.
The bullpen had to be activated early in the second inning, as Lee Yong-joon left the game without recording a single out. Kim Jae-yeol pitched two innings in the second and Han Jae-seung pitched one inning in the fourth. They kept LG from making a run. However, in the fifth inning, Lim Jung-ho hit a three-run home run off Park Dong-won to widen the gap to 2-8. NC then sent second-year fireballer Shin Young-woo to the mound.
Shin Young-woo, who was on the first team roster, was scheduled to pitch in a long-relief role. On the previous day (April 24), substitute Lee Joon-ho was pulled after giving up five runs in two innings, and long reliever Choi Sung-young gave up five runs in four innings. He was immediately unavailable to pitch on the 25th. Shin Young-woo was called up again to replace him. Manager Kang Kwon-hyun also said that he wanted to see something from Shin Young-woo on this day.
In the fifth inning, Shin gave up a straight ball to the first batter, Moon Bo-kyung. He then threw three pitches to Oh Ji-hwan, and on the fourth 스포츠토토 pitch, he hit a straight line drive to the first baseman. His fastball reached 155 kilometers.
Shin struggled to get out of the inning. In the sixth inning, he gave up a leadoff walk to Koo Bon-hyuk. He got Heo Do-hwan to hit a sacrifice bunt, but then gave up a straight-up walk to Hong Chang-ki and another to Moon Sung-joo to load the bases. He then gave up a two-pitch walk to Park Hae-min and a two-pitch, two-strike double. With runners on first and second, Austin followed with an infield fly to second. However, when Park Dong-won came to bat, he was hit by a pitch and allowed a walk to load the bases again. Moon got out of the seventh inning with a grounder to second base.
A walk and a wild pitch loaded the bases. However, manager Kang Myung-hwon kept Shin Young-woo in the game. He was on the mound again in the seventh inning. He gave up a straight ball to the leadoff hitter, Oh Ji-hwan. But unlike the previous innings, he settled down. He induced Koo Bon-hyeok to ground out to second base and induced a double play against Heo Do-hwan. Against Hong Chang-ki, he drew two strikes and induced a grounder to second base on three pitches. He kept getting better and better, and was in charge until the eighth inning.
Against Moon Sung-ju, who led off the eighth inning, he drew two strikes and induced a fly ball to left field. Park followed with a two-strike walk and a 바카라사이트 single to right. Another straight ball to Austin. But with runners on first and second, he got Park to ground out to third to end the inning.
The score was wide open and there was no closer Lee Yong-chan. Kim Jae-yeol and Han Jae-seung were exhausted by Lee Yong-joon’s early walk. Ryu Jin-wook, Kim Young-kyu, and the rest of the pitching staff were too much to handle. They wanted Shin Young-woo to take charge of the game as much as possible.
Shin fulfilled the bench’s wishes to a certain extent, as he only gave up two runs and closed out the game. Although he gave up seven walks in his 3⅔ innings of work, he threw only 27 strikes and 42 balls out of 69 pitches. That’s a strike rate of just 39%.
With so many walks and zero hits, the bench left him alone. What purpose did they serve other than to save the bullpen and see if they could get him out of the game somehow? What did NC see in Young-woo Shin as they were swept and dropped to fifth place?