Hanwha right-hander Lee Tae-yang, 33, couldn’t smile after his first win in a month. The disappointment of not being able to pitch a long inning due to five consecutive strikeouts prevented him from smiling.
The Hanwha Eagles won 6-2 in their 14th game of the season against the KT Wiz of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on April 18. The eighth-ranked Hanwha snapped a four-game losing streak after sweeping a doubleheader the day before, improving to 51 wins, six draws and 66 losses on the season.
The key to the victory was starter Lee Tae-yang. He tossed five innings of three-hit ball against No. 2 KT, giving up two runs on three hits with two walks and three strikeouts while throwing 77 pitches to record his third win of the season in about a month after his last outing against the Changwon NC on March 16. Despite giving up two runs in the top of the second and a single to Kim Sang-soo in the fifth, the right-hander settled down to retire the side in order in the first, third, and fourth innings to end his team’s losing streak.
After the game, Lee said, “I didn’t get the win by myself. I’m grateful to my pitchers because they gave me the right amount of runs so I could pitch aggressively,” she said after the game.
The most frustrating inning of the day was the fifth. After giving up back-to-back singles to Choi Jae-dae and Shin Bong-ki, he was hit by a first-pitch double off Kim Sang-soo, who came in with runners on first and second. Lee threw 28 pitches in the fifth inning alone and was relieved by Joo Hyun-sang in the sixth.
“We had a tough doubleheader yesterday, and we’re in the middle of a tough nine-game series, so I wanted to go the distance, but I gave up a walk in the fifth inning, so it’s a shame I couldn’t do that,” Lee said.
Still, Lee, who returned to his hometown Hanwha in November last year for a total of 2.5 billion won over four years, has been an integral part of the Hanwha mound this year with a 3-1 record and 2.85 ERA in 46 games 온라인카지노.
“I want to pitch more reliably, and I want to pitch to increase the team’s win percentage rather than my own,” said Lee, showing off his team-first mentality.
With 21 games left until the end of the season, Lee said, “The 2023 season won’t come back, so next year’s season can be different depending on what kind of mindset we finish with. With that in mind, the entire squad is playing the remaining games with each game as precious as the next,” he said, strengthening his resolve for the rest of the season.