With only 20 games left in the second half of the season, Hanwha is currently conducting ‘tests’ for mound management for next season. We are checking the skills of young pitchers with great potential after giving them a chance to play in the first team, but there are already promising young pitchers who are standing out. A good example is left-hander Kim Ki-joong (21), who was given the opportunity to be selected at the end of the season.

Kim Ki-joong started against Daejeon SSG on the 19th and pitched well with 5 hits (1 home run), 3 walks, 6 strikeouts, and 2 runs in 5 innings. Although a body slider thrown to SSG’s lead hitter Guillermo Heredia in the top of the 6th inning led to a flat miss and allowed a home run, the SSG batting lineup was held scoreless through the 5th inning with sharp pitching and precise control. The maximum speed of the fastball reached 146 km. In the top of the 3rd inning, with 2 outs and 3rd base on base, the scene where he threw a fast ball to SSG slugger Choi Jeong and struck him out was the highlight.

Kim Ki-joong, who was given the opportunity to start in place of Moon Dong-ju, who ended the season early by completing limited number of innings, earned his first win of the season by allowing 2 runs in 5 innings against Gocheok Kiwoom on the 9th. As a starting pitcher, he has pitched well in two consecutive games, raising expectations for the 2024 season, and Hanwha coach Choi Won-ho also expressed satisfaction with Kim Ki-joong’s growth.

Coach Choi said, “My ball control has improved. “When he first came here after graduating from high school, he only had a ‘slider’ among the breaking balls, but now his curveball and changeup have also been improved a lot,” he said. Kim Ki-joong’s growth is especially good news for Hanwha, which lacks left-handed pitching resources.

Park Jun-young (20), who was registered as a first-team entry on the 6th, is also scheduled to stand on the mound as a starting pitcher soon. Park Jun-young is a promising right-handed pitcher wearing a Hanwha uniform in the second first round (1st pick) of the 2022 Rookie Draft. He made a relief appearance against Gocheok Kiwoom on the 9th and went 2 innings without allowing a run. He went multiple innings, allowing no hits and striking out three. In his second relief appearance against Doosan in Jamsil on the 12th, he pitched cleanly, allowing no runs in one inning.

Coach Choi said, “(Park) Jun-young was originally classified as a bullpen resource by the scouts, but since he is young, I think it is not a bad idea to have experience as both a starter and a bullpen,” and added, “We plan to send him out as a starter and test him during the 9-game series this week. am. “By the time the final training is over, Junyoung’s role for next season will have been decided in the larger framework,” he explained.메이저사이트

The emergence of promising players such as Kim Ki-joong, Han Seung-joo, and Nam Ji-min, who have improved their skills, is expected to be a great help in strengthening the pitching staff next season. It would be the icing on the cake if Kim Seo-hyun, the first overall pick in the 2023 rookie draft, who is having a difficult rookie season, emerges from the egg. The addition of left-hander Hwang Jun-seo (Jangchung High School), the first overall pick in the 2024 rookie draft, is also expected to be a plus factor for Hanwha.