A ray of hope in the midst of despair.
The Lotte Giants of the Korean Baseball Organization have struggled on the mound this year. The foreign one-two punch of Charlie Barnes and Aaron Wilkerson has done its job. They were two of the best one-two punchers in the league. But the rest of the homegrown players didn’t quite measure up.
Park Se-woong, who was supposed to be the homegrown ace, has been up and down since the middle of the season. Na Gyun-an and Lee In-bok, who were supposed to be the fourth and fifth starters, were dropped from the lineup early due to poor performances. Na Gyun-an was even disciplined by the club due to his personal life controversy before the season and during the season.
The bullpen was even worse. Closer Kim Won-joong remained in place, but his inability to keep the team in the game at crucial junctures left the team in a quagmire. Pil Seung-jo and Koo Seung-min, the soul duo of Kim Won-joong, also failed to inspire confidence as they struggled throughout the season. The team’s reliance on Kim Sang-soo was severe throughout the season.
Injuries were also not uncommon.
Rookie pitcher Jeon Mir had a sensational first half of the season, but slumps and injuries kept him out of the first team for much of the second half. Choi Joon-yong, another must-win pitcher, underwent surgery to repair a nagging shoulder problem. Choi, who had performed well in long relief, was also ruled out for the season with cartilage damage in his right shoulder.
Not that there were no new faces. After failing to fulfill his potential, fourth-year left-hander Jin-wook Kim grabbed the starting job once and stayed in the rotation until the end of the season. Catcher-turned-pitcher Kim Kang-hyun also showed promise in a catcher’s role. But the best discovery on the Lotte mound this year was an unlikely one: fifth-year pitcher Park Jin, 25.
Park, who was drafted in the fourth round of the second round of the 2019 rookie draft out of Busan High School, has really come into his own in the first team this year. After pitching in just two games for the first team in 2019, 카지노사이트 he was immediately called up for active military service.
From 2021 to 2023, he was more often seen in the second team than the first. Until last year, he made just six first-team appearances. This year, however, he appeared in 38 games, going 2-4 with a 4.38 ERA in 49 1/3 innings with one save.
He quietly made it from spring training to the opening day roster this year.
He made two trips to the second team, but has stuck with the first team since June. On July 28 against the Changwon NC, Kim Won-joong blew a blown save, but the team scored four runs in the top of the 10th inning to take a 10-6 lead. However, Kim Kang-hyun and Jin Hae-soo put runners on first and second with no outs. In the bottom of the 10th, Park Jin-jin came to the mound with runners on first and second. With the game on the line, Park pitched one inning of scoreless relief, striking out one and walking none to earn his first save.
Park gradually earned his way into the middle of the rotation, and at the end of the season, when the team was short on starters for the remainder of the season, he started. Adjusting to the long innings wasn’t too difficult for Park, as he had been receiving starting lessons while on the second team for the month of May. In his debut start against the Incheon SSG on September 11, he pitched 3⅔ innings of four-hit ball with one walk and four strikeouts. A successful start.
On the 17th, LG Electronics gave up three runs on six hits and one walk in 3⅓ innings with one strikeout and one hit batter, but on the 25th, he bounced back with six innings of four-hit ball, no walks, seven strikeouts, and one earned run in his first start against KIA.
Although the Tigers were eliminated from the fall baseball season, the game was full of meaning for Park.
At the time, Kim Do-young of the KIA Tigers was challenging to become the first Korean player to hit 40-40 with 38 home runs and 40 doubles. Park didn’t shy away from Kim and went toe-to-toe with him. He gave up a triple in the first inning and a single to left in the third, but struck out the last batter he faced in the bottom of the sixth.
Looking back on the game, Park said, “I tried to throw without thinking about the 40-homer challenge. If it’s a hit, it’s a hit, so I didn’t dodge it and tried to keep fighting,” he said. Manager Kim Tae-hyung said of Park, “His fastball isn’t that fast, but it seems to have power. He doesn’t hit hard enough. He has a good batting average and good balance.” ”I think this experience of starting and going to the bullpen will help him. I think there are some things that I felt, but I hope I can keep my good feelings and prepare for next year,” he said.
Looking back on this season,
Park said, “Last year, I was passive. “I threw as many strikes as I could while compensating for what I felt last year, and I threw with the idea that I was attacking the batter, so I think I got good results,” he said.
“Pitching in the first team this year, I felt that my pitches were working and I gained a lot of confidence,” he said, adding, ”I think this is the beginning of my career, but I was thinking a lot about how I need to prepare for next year.”
“I saw the possibilities this year and gained confidence that my ball is definitely working. He has had some failures, but he has gained more experience through success. Now that he’s in the eyes of manager Kim Tae-hyung, he’ll have to think hard about what role he’ll play next year. His consistency in the bullpen and stability in the starting rotation are attractive. Park’s performance has been promising. We can only look forward to 2025.