The eyeglasses ace stepped up to the plate when his team needed him most. The Lotte Giants broke out of a three-game losing streak behind the pitching of Park Se-woong.
Lotte won the seventh game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League against the LG Twins 2-1 at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Wednesday. The win snapped a three-game losing streak and improved their record to 32-30 on the season, keeping them in sole possession of fourth place, two games ahead of the fifth-place Doosan Bears.
Leading Lotte to victory was Park Se-woong. Starting on the mound, Park shut down the LG bats with eight innings of three-hit ball, striking out five and walking none.
It was a clean start. In the top of the first and second innings, he struck out the first two LG batters. Except for Moon Sung-joo’s single up the middle in the bottom of the third inning, LG was shut out by Park Se-woong until the sixth inning.토토사이트
In the bottom of the seventh, Hong Chang-ki, the leadoff hitter, gave up a single to Kim Hyun-soo to put runners on first and third, but Austin Dean induced a grounder to second base to trade runs and outs and minimize the damage.
He threw a variety of pitches, including a fastball that topped out at 148 kilometers per hour, a curveball with a big drop, a slider, and a forkball, to shake up the LG hitters’ timing. It was his fourth win of the season after failing to win his last three games in a row against Jamsil LG on March 31.
Lotte, which was 3-12 in June and in danger of slipping into mid-table with three straight losses, has also rebounded thanks to Park Se-woong. With no bullpen depletion except for closer Kim Won-joong, the team can now prepare for the LG game on June 24-25 in good spirits.
“When I went to the mound in the eighth inning, pitching coach Bae Young-soo told me to throw each batter as if it were my last,” Park said after the game. “I focused more and tried to keep the game scoreless,” he added.
“It was disappointing to give up the run in the seventh inning, but I’m thankful that our batters answered right back in the top of the eighth. If we hadn’t tied the game in the bottom of the eighth, I would have thought more about it, but it was 1-1, so I pitched quickly so that Lotte could continue their next offense.”
With Lotte’s recent slide, Park was bound to feel some pressure, but pitching coach Bae Young-soo and Yoo Kang-nam, who works as a battery, helped him feel comfortable on the mound.
“Coach Bae told me before the game, ‘Don’t think you have to carry the whole game, just do what you’re used to doing. I felt confident after the first or second inning,” he said. “Above all, it helps that (Yoo) Gangnam does a lot of research and talks to me every moment. I think he had a very good chemistry with his brother.”