Now, not 10 wins, but 10 losses are just around the corner
The Doosan Bears are in an atmosphere of slowing down recently amid the sluggish starters they believed. In particular, the sluggish performance of Doosan pitcher Choi Won-joon, the eldest brother of the native starters, is a fatal blow. Now, 10 losses, not 10 wins, are right around the corner. When Choi Won-jun, whom he trusted, did not calculate, Doosan was also caught in an emergency.
Doosan lost 3-8 against Hanwha Eagles in Daejeon on August 13th. Doosan, which lost the weekend winning series, maintained its 5th place in the league with 49 wins, 1 draw and 47 losses in the season. There was even a 3 game gap with 3rd place KT WIZ. 스포츠토토 Choi Won-joon, who was on the Doosan starting mound that day, began to falter from the end of the first inning. Choi Won-joon hit first hitter Mun Hyun-bin and Noh Si-hwan walked, and in the crisis of 1 company 1st and 2nd base, Chae Eun-seong hit the right time. Choi Won-joon, who was hit by Kim Tae-yeon and Lee Jin-young in a row, scored three runs from the first inning.
In the top of the second inning, Doosan began a one-to-three pursuit with a left-handed solo home run by lead batter Yang Seok-hwan.
However, Choi Won-jun allowed Moon Hyun-bin to hit a double in the middle left after a run at the end of the second inning. The Doosan bench moved faster than expected. Doosan immediately put Kim Min-kyu in place of Choi Won-joon to prevent additional runs. Kim Min-kyu, who suddenly came up from the second inning, called Choi Won-joon’s successor home with a sacrifice fly ball to the right field after a wild throw.
In the end, Choi Won-joon took his ninth loss of the season with 38 pitches, 5 hits, 1 strikeout, 1 walk and 4 runs in 1.1 innings that day. Doosan was unable to reverse the atmosphere of the game, which was given away due to a large number of runs at the beginning of the game.
The most regrettable thing about the Doosan mound this season is the sluggish performance of Choi Won-joon, the eldest native starter. Choi Won-joon recorded an average ERA of 4.03 with 2 losses in 5 appearances in April this season. Under the gaze that Seung-woon does not follow, Choi Won-jun reported a victory with a good pitch against Gocheok Kiwoom Heroes on May 16 (6 innings, 1 run).
Since then, the flow of Choi Won-jun’s pitching, which seemed to be able to work out, has become more and more twisted. Choi Won-joon, who had only made one quality start since June, suffered from sluggish performances and injuries. The number of defeats accumulated has reached 9 losses (2 wins). It is a more shocking figure because he believed that his 10 wins in the season was a calculated starter.
There is a view that Choi Won-joon’s sluggishness is the aftermath of the inning digestion accumulated over the past few years. Choi Won-joon settled on the first team stage from the 2019 season (54.1 innings) and played many innings every year, from the 2020 season (123 innings), 2021 season (158.1 innings), and 2022 season (165 innings). If you include his postseason innings, Choi Won-joon has played more innings than this.
The aftermath led to a decrease in the speed of the fastball. Choi Won-joon started with the 2019 season (average speed of fast ball 139.8 km/h), 2020 season (average speed of fast ball 139.3 km/h), 2021 season (average speed of fast ball 138.7 km/h), and 2022 season (average speed of fast ball 138.3 km/h). , through the 2023 season (average speed of fast ball 137.8km/h), it is experiencing a decrease in average speed of fast ball every year.
In the past, when Choi Won-joon’s pitching flow was good, his fastball restraint was steadily formed in the 140-2km/h range. However, it is difficult to find a ball with such a pitch this season. As the power of the fastball, which was heavier than the visible speed, has decreased somewhat, the opponent hitters are coping with the timing of the breaking ball sufficiently. This is the background of continuing the difficult flow by allowing concentrated hits from the beginning of the game this season.
Still, it is the basic proposition that Choi Won-joon must survive. This is why Kwak Bin and Choi Won-joon should definitely take charge of the selection of natives who stand the calculation on the Doosan mound. Attention is focusing on what kind of solution Choi Won-joon and Doosan Bench will find in their next pitching, which has faced the problem of the average velocity of fastballs that have fallen every year.