Yum Liang is the best foreign pitcher of the three years. If Lim Chan-gyu and Son Joo-young are added, will 4 pitchers with 10 wins be born in 28 years?
Mar 20, 2025
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LG Twins manager Yeom Kyung-yeop is quite satisfied with foreign pitchers Yoni Chirinos and Eliaser Hernandez this season. I've been with LG for three years, and it's the best foreign pitcher combination.
Coach Yeom's first role in 2023 was Casey Kelly and Adam Plutko. Kelly was sluggish in the beginning, and Plutko won 11 games in the first half alone, but fell out due to injury in the second half and eventually failed to go to the Korean Series. Last year, it was Kelly and Detrick Ens. Both Kelly and Ens were up and down, and in the end, LG had to decide to let Kelly go and sign Hernandez.
Coach Yeom believes that both Chirinos and Hernandez are likely to succeed in the KBO League. Coach Yeom said "The determination and folk ball are powerful" and "He also throws high-speed balls, so how to use them seems important."It is important how to mix Chirinos' pitches."
Hernandez was good in the beginning when he started last year, but he often got hit hard after the batting order turned around. However, coach Yeom predicted that it will be different this year. Coach Yeom explained that there will be no timing like last year due to the difference in ball speed between pitches.
Coach Yeom said, "There is a clear difference in speed between the three pitches: a slider of about 138 kilometers that I say is a cutter, a sweeper of 128 kilometers, and a curve of about 120 kilometers." Last year, the cutter's speed was about 142 kilometers. As a result, it was caught at the same time as the fastball.
Yeom hopes to win about 15 games against Chirinos and Hernandez. It is a multiplier of first-line issuance. Manager Yeom starts with two pitchers close to the first starter. The coach said, "I can play a game with a high probability.'
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Son Joo-young is a left-handed pitcher with a height of 1m93 and throws a fast fastball, slider, curve, and fork ball over 150km. He played as the first full-time starter last year and recorded a 9-10-1 hold average ERA of 3.79. Although he did not achieve a double-digit victory, he pitched 144 ⅔ innings to achieve the regular innings, ranking eighth in the overall ERA.
He pitched twice in this year's exhibition games and showed stable pitching with four hits, three walks, eight strikeouts and one run in eight innings, raising expectations. Manager Yeom was so confident that he placed Son Joo-young as the second pitcher between Chirinos and Hernandez.
Currently, LG's 1st to 4th starters are considered to be in a fairly stable condition. It is worth trying to produce four 10-win pitchers for the third time in the team's history.
LG has produced four 10-win pitchers twice, in 1994 (18 wins in Sanghoon Lee, 16 wins in Kim Tae-won, 15 wins in Jeong Sam-heum, 10 wins in In Hyun-bae) and in 1997 (12 wins in Kim Yong-soo, 11 wins in Cha Myung-seok in Lim Seon-dong, 10 wins in Sanghoon Lee). Unfortunately, there has not been one since 2000.
We tried to produce four people last year, but failed. Detrick Ens won 13 games and Lim Chan-kyu won 10, but Choi Won-tae and Son Joo-young won nine games each, falling short of one win.
As manager Yeom envisioned, if the bullpen stabilizes and the batters grow and the main players replenish their physical strength and perform their skills, the starting pitchers will be able to build as many wins as expected.
The most wins recorded by LG foreign pitchers were 31 wins by Kelly (16 wins) and Plutko (15 wins) in 2022.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
