The professional baseball KIA Tigers have confirmed their direct advance to the KBO Korean Series early on. In order for KIA to win the combined championship beyond the regular season to the post season, it is urgent to revive foreign starters.안전놀이터
KIA, which has confirmed its regular season win, will enter the first game of the 2024 Shinhan Sol KBO Korean Series (best of seven games) from the 21st of next month.
This season, KIA won the regular season for the first time in seven years since 2017 with nearly 15 days left before the regular season due to the even performance of the pitching.
Kim Do-young, Kim Sun-bin, Socrates Brito, and Park Chan-ho, who emerged as KBO’s best stars this season, played more than their roles in the batting average of over 300, and Yang Hyun-jong also proved his name with 11 wins (five losses) on the mound.
Along with Jeon Sang-hyun (10 wins, 7 saves, 18 holds), Kwak Do-gyu (16 holds, 2 saves), Choi Ji-min (11 holds, 3 saves), and Jeong Hae-young (31 saves), who confirmed the king of relief to Jang Hyun-sik (16 holds), were also responsible for the back door stably.
Although he finished the league safely with an overwhelming performance, if you look closely at the reality, this season has certainly not been easy for KIA at all.
Since the beginning of the season, a large number of key players have been out of power due to injuries, and it has been a rough year.
With the opening of the season just around the corner, captain Na Sung-beom was absent for more than a month due to a hamstring (muscle behind the thigh), and starting pitcher Lee Eui-ri, closing pitcher Jung Hae-young, and starting agent Yoon Young-chul were absent from the lineup in turn.
The biggest crisis for KIA was the rise of foreign resources.
Wil Crowe, who had been the first starter, played 5-1 in eight games at the beginning of the season, but was unable to take the mound after May due to elbow surgery, and eventually left the team.
KIA called Cam Aldred as Crowe’s replacement, and he filled Crowe’s vacancy with 3 wins, 2 losses and a 4.53 ERA in 9 games.
Since then, he has recruited Eric Lauer from the Major League Baseball (MLB), but he has tried to run a stable starting operation, but he needed time to adapt due to his sudden joining.
To make matters worse, KIA’s 12-win ace pitcher James Nail, who had been leading the league with an ERA of 2.53, was hit in the face by Matt Davidson’s ball in the game against the NC Dinos on the 24th of last month and went up to the operating table.
KIA urgently recruited Eric Stout as a short-term substitute foreign pitcher, but even that complained of hamstring pain against Doosan on the 19th and eventually left the KBO League in four games.
As foreign pitchers left one after another, only native pitchers have been listed in KIA’s starting lineup since Lauer started on the 12th. The only foreign stout did not even fill two innings on the 19th.
Yang Hyun-jong and Kim Do-hyun had to be in charge of the starting rotation for the past 15 days.
With the regular league coming to an end, KIA now has only the Korean Series left.
It is very important for the starting rotation to run smoothly in order to win the Korean Series, which runs in a short breath.
To this end, the comeback of KIA foreign starters is more important than anything else.
Nail took the mound as a surprise first pitchman in a home game against the Kiwoom Heroes at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field on the 6th and expressed her will toward autumn baseball, saying, “I will try to repay you.”
Lauer, who showed signs of anxiety in four games in August with jagged performances, pitched six innings of one hit and no run against Lotte on the 12th, his last appearance.
In order for KIA to be as strong as the regular season in the Korean Series, two foreign starters must play their part to build a complete starting lineup.