This is the first time I've ever been disgraced No. 1...What's going on with Closer, who's over Sun Dong-yeol

Jul 23, 2025

This is the first time I've ever been disgraced No. 1...What's going on with Closer, who's over Sun Dong-yeol
LG-KIA match held at Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on the 22nd. Jung Hae-young, who took the mound in the top of the ninth inning but allowed a tie, is being replaced. Gwangju = Reporter Jeong Jae-geun cjg@sportschosun.com /2025.7.22/



KIA Tigers closer Jung Hae-young tied for first place with the league's most blon saves.

Jung Hae-young took the mound in the ninth inning with a 7-4 lead over the Gwangju LG Twins on the 22nd. A generous three-point save situation. The atmosphere was at its peak as KIA's batters scored as many as six points in the bottom of the eighth inning. Jung Hae-young only needed to finish neatly, but he took his fifth loss of the season by allowing only four runs on 14 pitches (one homer) in the ⅓ innings. KIA came from behind to lose 7-9.

If KIA won on the day, it could have risen to third place by narrowing the gap between the second-place LG and 1.5 games, but at the same time, it was 3.5 games apart from LG and 1.5 games behind the fifth-place KT Wiz.




Jung Hae-young was on the verge of first and second base when he allowed two consecutive hits to Oh Ji-hwan and Park Kwan-woo after one out. And the match with Park Hae-min was important, and the fastball drove into the middle of the strike zone. Even Park Hae-min, who is not a home run hitter, could not have missed a real pitch, leading to a superior three-run tie. 5th Blon Save of the season.

Jung Hae-young could no longer endure on the mound, perhaps due to the impact of the homerun. Koo Bon-hyuk also got a hit in the middle and handed the ball over to Cho Sang-woo in a crisis with one out and one base.

Cho Sang-woo also failed to prevent a come-from-behind loss by allowing only two hits and one run in ⅓ innings. As soon as he came up, he got a hit to the left by Moon Sung-joo, and allowed Kim Hyun-soo to hit a timely hit to the right with one out and runners on first and second, turning it over 7-8. Here, Jung Hae-young's manager Koo Bon-hyuk scored and allowed four runs. The next batter, Moon Bo-kyung, seemed to return to the second base with a double play, but he lost an additional point when shortstop Park Chan-ho made a mistake to throw to the first base.




Jung Hae-young recorded five blon saves in a season, the most since her professional debut in 2020. Until the 22nd, LG Kim Jin-sung, Doosan Kim Taek-yeon, KT Park Young-hyun, and SSG Noh Kyung-eun shared the league's No. 1 disgrace.

Jung Hae-young recorded three in 2024, three in 2023, four in 2022, four in 2021, and three in 2020, and this year KIA set a personal record with 54 games left in the season.

This is the first time I've ever been disgraced No. 1...What's going on with Closer, who's over Sun Dong-yeol
LG-KIA match held at Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on the 22nd. Jung Hae-young is pitching at the top of the ninth inning. Gwangju = Reporter Jeong Jae-geun cjg@sportschosun.com /2025.7.22/
This is the first time I've ever been disgraced No. 1...What's going on with Closer, who's over Sun Dong-yeol
LG-KIA match held at Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on the 22nd. Jung Hae-young, who took the mound in the top of the ninth inning but allowed a tie, is sitting down avoiding a follow-up hit. Gwangju = Reporter Jeong Jae-geun cjg@sportschosun.com /2025.7.22/
It can be said that he is having the most unstable season since he took over as a closer. Jung Hae-young is 2-5 with 24 saves, 45 ⅔ innings and a 3.94 ERA in 43 games this year. It is certainly worrisome that the closing pitcher's ERA is close to four points. The hit rate reaches 0.309, and WHIP (the number of on-base allowed per inning) is also high at 1.55.

Of course, there are more games where Jung Hae-young kept her victory. KIA manager Lee Bum-ho evaluated that three must-win teams, including Jung Hae-young, Cho Sang-woo and Jeon Sang-hyung, blocked the back door well throughout the first half. In the second half of the year, he stressed that he will trust three people and appoint them, and there is no option to add other than three. Jeon Sang-hyun pitched 46 ⅓ innings to rank No. 1 in the bullpen in the team, and Cho Sang-woo ranked third with 41 innings.

Manager Lee said, `The three players who threw in the must-win group threw really well. (Former) Sang-hyun (Cho) Sang-woo) (Jung) Hae-young has a lot of innings, and the winning game is always going up in the 7th to 9th innings. In any team, the winning team is a difficult position, but I know that they have tried to win. I don't worry too much about the bullpen. There are no pitchers who can come more, and they struggled the most. In the current situation, the best way is to use (Lee) Joon-young, (Choi) Jimin, or left-handed pitchers little by little to reduce innings, so wouldn't the probability of winning the game increase?"

Jung Hae-young has achieved 145 saves in his career this year, surpassing Tigers legend Sun Dong-yeol (132 saves) early and continuing to write the club's history of most saves. It is difficult to imagine a KIA closer other than Jung Hae-young, but it is also clear that he is sending abnormal signals. Director Lee's head is expected to be complicated in how to manage and lead Jung Hae-young in a unstable situation.

This is the first time I've ever been disgraced No. 1...What's going on with Closer, who's over Sun Dong-yeol
A match between SSG and KIA at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on the 22nd. Jung Hae-young is on the ground for training. Incheon = Song Jeong-heon Reporter's songs@sportschosun.com/2025.06.22/




This article was translated by Naver AI translator.