Kim Min-soo (31-KT), who was a key part of KT’s championship run two years ago, has been ruled out for the season after suffering a fractured ankle while training with the second team.

KT head coach Lee Kang-cheol met with reporters before the team’s 14th game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League against Doosan at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Saturday to share the news of Kim’s surgery.

Lee said, “I heard that Kim Min-soo broke his ankle and had surgery the day before. I was going to use him as a substitute when Park Young-hyun went to the Asian Games, but there was no substitute. He said he was injured while running,” he sighed.

According to KT officials, Kim broke his left outer peach bone during a Futures training session in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do, where the second-team camp was set up on Oct. 10. Kim underwent successful surgery at an orthopedic clinic in Seoul on Thursday and is expected to take more than three months to return. He is out for the season.

Kim was selected by KT in the second round of the 2015 KBO Draft with the 11th overall pick out of Sungkyunkwan University. He was not a highly recognized player upon joining the team. In the four years since 2015, he spent more time in the second team than the first team, and even when he was in the first team, he was mostly responsible for doing the dirty work of losing, chasing, and long relief. From his debut through the 2018 season, he was 1-0 with a 6.12 ERA in 24 games with one save and one hold.

After Lee took over as manager in 2019, Kim became a completely different player. He finally came into his own with an 8-5 record, two saves, and a 4.96 ERA in 28 games, and spent the next two years bouncing back and forth between the starting rotation and the bullpen, gaining valuable experience along the way. In 2021, he went 4-2 with a 2.95 ERA in 56 games and 11 saves, and became a must-win pitcher for the combined championship.

In his eighth year as a professional in 2022, Kim had a career-high 76 games with a 5-4 record, three saves, and a 1.90 ERA in 30 appearances. He pitched 80⅔ innings, the most of any bullpen pitcher in the 10 clubs, and finished second in holds behind LG’s Jung Woo-young (35). KT’s third consecutive postseason appearance was largely due to Kim Min-soo.

This year, however, he was hampered by injuries. Prior to the exhibition games, he tore his supraspinatus tendon in his right shoulder and was given a two-month rehab assignment. Kim shook off the injury and made his return on May 26 with the Daegu Samsung Electronics and spent the month of May with a 2.08 ERA in four games and two starts, but his pitches and velocity quickly declined in June, leaving him with a 1-4 record and a 6.92 ERA in 14 games without a win.

Kim Min-soo also struggled in the second team. He struggled to get back on track and was even moved to the starting rotation to throw more pitches. On August 3, he started against KIA in the Futures League and took the loss after giving up three runs in two innings, but he suffered a fracture in training and was ruled out for the rest of the season.메이저사이트

With a win-loss margin of -14, KT has narrowed the gap to second-place SSG to two games, but Lee Kang-cheol had a lot to worry about during the Hangzhou Asian Games in late September. After Park Young-hyun, a key member of the Pilseung group, was called up to the national team, the team was looking for a replacement, but was hit with the bad news that Kim Min-soo, the top candidate, was out for the season. Lee said, “I’ve been thinking a lot. I think I need to think a little more about Kim Min-soo’s replacement.”