“There was a rain forecast for tomorrow (Friday), so we quickly pulled Crowe and went to our bullpen, which hasn’t pitched much this week.”
Kia Tigers manager Lee Bum-ho has exceeded expectations in his first year at the helm. As of April 4, KIA leads the league with a 23-12 record and a .657 winning percentage. The bats of Na Sung-beom, Choi Hyung-woo, Socrates Brito, Kim Sun-bin, Kim Do-young, and Park Chan-ho are among the strongest in the league, and the team is also benefiting from the foreign one-two punch of Will Crowe-James Nail, who was acquired this year.
Kia won big on Thursday, 10-2, against the Hanwha Eagles in Gwangju. Hanwha used veteran reliever Lee Tae-yang in the opener in place of Moon Dong-ju, who is spending time rehabbing in the second team, and Kia bombarded the Hanwha mound mercilessly from the start, scoring five runs in the first inning and four in the second. Lee took the loss after giving up five runs in ⅔ of an inning, and Hanwha’s second pitcher, Jang Ji-soo, was also tagged with the loss after giving up four runs in one inning.
What stood out was the timing of Crowe’s departure. Crowe threw five innings, 75 pitches, two hits, one walk, six strikeouts, and no runs to pick up his fifth win of the season. Given his pitch count, he could have gone one more inning, maybe two, but Lee decided to let him go early as Hanwha had already put some distance between them.
Crowe used a mix of fastballs (21), sliders (19), sweepers (15), two-seam fastballs (12), changeups (7), and curveballs (1) to cook the Hanwha lineup. The fastball was shaky, but the Hanwha hitters had little to no response to Crowe’s sweepers and sliders. The sweeper was 14 of 15 pitches for strikes, and the slider was 14 of 19 pitches for strikes. The changeup also had just one strike. His fastball and two-seam fastball topped out at 151 mph.
In general, if a team is winning a game with a foreign pitcher by a large margin, they will usually keep the foreign pitcher in longer. This is especially true if the team has been using up its bullpen, and foreign pitchers tend to go at least six innings, if not more.
Lee explained why he pulled Crowe after five innings: “Crowe pitched five perfect innings with run support from the hitters. He managed his pitch count well. The score was close, and there was a rain delay for tomorrow (Friday), so we quickly pulled Crowe and brought in a bullpen that hadn’t pitched much this week.” The decision was made based 토토사이트 on the bullpen’s condition rather than Crowe’s, as the bullpen would have more rest days if the game on the 5th was canceled due to rain.
Starting in the sixth inning, Kia sent Choi Ji-min (1 inning), Jeon Sang-hyun (1 inning), Kim Gun-guk (1 inning), and Jeong Hae-young (1 inning, 2 runs) to the mound to secure the win.
Lee criticized himself for pulling starter Hwang Dong-ha too late in the third inning against Hanwha. He brought up Hwang in the fifth inning with the score 0-1. Hanwha’s batting order was Hwang Young-mook, Choi In-ho, and Jung Won. Hwang got the leadoff hitter, Hwang Young-mook, to ground out to shortstop and gave up a single to right to Choi In-ho and then a two-run double to Jung Eun-won. The 0-3 deficit led to a 2-4 loss for KIA. Hwang Dong-ha pitched the first five innings (three runs) of his professional debut, but took the loss.
Lee said, “I think I should have changed him after four innings to make it better. I think he would have come down feeling good, and I think he would have felt good going five innings. I think it would have been good for us to change him in the fourth inning, but he pitched five innings, so I think it would have been a good game in many ways. I think it’s good that he kept his velocity until the fifth inning and has the stamina to go from one to 100 pitches. You can always make a middle reliever who has good stuff and can pitch one inning at a time, but it’s hard to make a starter. You have to take that risk to make a starter. When you look at his five innings, there’s room for improvement.”
Hwang praised the brass, but reflected on himself. In the fifth inning, when Jeong Eun-won was batting with one out in the first inning, he explained that pitching coach Jung Jae-hoon was on the mound.
“I was thinking, ‘Coach Jung and No. 9 (Hwang Young-mook), No. 1 (Choi In-ho), and No. 2 (Jeong Eun-won) are left-handed, so if only one of them gets on base, I’ll switch to (Kwak) Do-gyu. Then the next batter (Choi In-ho) went out, so if you use Do-gyu, you only have to face one batter and switch. (Jung) Eun-won got to the plate and I was thinking of switching to (Jang) Hyun-sik, but I didn’t think Eun-won would hit a home run. I was thinking about it with Coach Jung, and then he hit a two-run home run, so it got complicated. It’s a shame because we have to think about two or three situations, and we were ready to use the bullpen quickly when we saw (Hanwha starter) Sanchez’s pitch. I was prepared and ready, but the bats changed and I couldn’t think of two or three more situations,” Lee reflected.
Lee is currently leading his team to the top of the standings, but he seems to realize his shortcomings on a daily basis. By reflecting and learning from his mistakes, Lee is in the process of improving along with his team. In Game 4, Lee opted to make a quick pitching change, which accomplished both of his goals of winning and keeping his bullpen fresh.
