The image of the ‘hero’ who brought Korea back from collapse in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is no longer visible.
The sluggish performance of right-handed pitcher Park Se-woong (28), who continues the lineage of Lotte’s “glasses ace,” is not serious. Park Se-woong also allowed 6 hits and 6 walks in 4⅔ innings against KIA in Gwangju on the 3rd, leaving 3 runs. It’s rather fortunate that he didn’t make a lot of runs. The number of pitches was also high at 111.
Nevertheless, Lotte won 7-4. Lotte jumped to the sole lead while running through Pajuk’s 9-game winning streak, but Park Se-woong is unable to laugh alone. He hasn’t even won one game yet, and only has one loss and an ERA of 5.25. Park Se-woong, who threw only 24 innings in 5 games, has 37 hits and 13 walks, allowing many on-base hits. That’s almost like allowing more than two runners on base per inning. Na Gyun-an threw 494 pitches in 33⅔ innings, while Park Se-woong threw 492 pitches in 24 innings. It means that there are many difficulties in catching hitters.
Just two months ago, Park Se-woong was the ‘savior’ of the WBC team. As Korea suffered consecutive losses to Australia and Japan in the group stage, Park Se-woong came out as a starting pitcher against the Czech Republic and pitched well with 1 hit and no runs in 4⅔ innings, giving the national team a valuable first win.
Lotte was also pleased with Park Se-woong’s strong fight with the Taegeuk mark. At the time, Lotte coach Larry Sutton also showed expectations, saying, “I am proud of my good performance on the international stage, and the player himself will be proud. It will not just end with the national team, but will help prepare for the 2023 season.” The reason Lotte signed a multi-year contract with Park Se-woong ahead of this season for a total of 9 billion won over 5 years is because they had such firm faith in pitcher Park Se-woong.메이저놀이터
However, when the regular season begins, Park Se-woong is unable to reproduce the appearance he showed in the national team. Even though he throws a fastball in the upper 140km range, his strike rate drops. Because of this, he has no choice but to play difficult matches in every match. Some point out that it is not an aftereffect of WBC. Not only Park Se-woong, but there are players struggling after returning from the WBC national team. Prior to the start of this season, Park Se-woong showed confidence, saying, “It is a style to quickly lift the body from spring camp,” and “I played the WBC, so there is no problem with the sense of the game.”
Lotte is on a 9-game winning streak and Na Kyun-an has emerged as a new native ace, but Park Se-woong’s strong pitching is desperately needed to keep the center of the starting pitching staff from collapsing. In addition, Park Se-woong, who has military issues at stake, has a clear goal to be on the Asian Games team this year. It’s only been about a month since the regular season started. There is enough time to return to the original form of Park Se-woong.