It was a painful defeat from the first round. However, it is encouraging that the highly anticipated bullpen session showed strength even before the event.
The Korean national baseball team lost 3-6 to Taiwan in the first Group B match of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier 12 at Taipei Dome on the 13th.
It seemed as if the game would go smoothly as long as the team passed the first inning without allowing a single run. However, in the bottom of the second inning, Ko Young-pyo allowed a grand slam and a two-run homer in succession, and thus Korea's plan was twisted.
However, the Korean team's "iron wall bullpen" blocked Taiwan from scoring additional points. Although the Korean team lost the game, it was able to keep up with Taiwan until the end of the game.
South Korea has built the strongest bullpen for this tournament. A large number of closing pitchers and middle pitchers representing each team joined. The calculation was that if the starter blocks well until the fifth inning, these bullpens will be responsible for it afterwards.
The starter collapsed early and operated faster than expected, but South Korea's bullpen showed its power against Taiwan without regret.
Choi Ji-min (KIA), who took the mound as the second pitcher after Ko Young-pyo, allowed 2.2 scoreless innings and handed over the baton to Kwak Do-gyu (KIA). Choi Ji-min had never pitched more than two innings in this season's regular league, but he silenced Taiwan's flow with his perfect pitching. Kwak Do-gyu then neatly caught one out count and was followed by Kim Seo-hyun, Hanwha's "expecting star." Kim Seo-hyun also allowed one scoreless inning, and the remaining two innings were taken by Yoo Young-chan (LG) and Cho Byung-hyun (SSG).
In the match against Taiwan, the rest of the batters, except for Kim Do-young, showed poor batting performance. In the match, if the batters played their part, it would have been possible to turn the tables, but it was painful that they ended up with only three hits. Still, through the match against Taiwan, I was confident that if Korea somehow continued its lead from the fourth to fifth innings, I could protect the game with the strength of the bullpen. 토토사이트
Korea has ample supplies of bullpen sessions. Korea did not deploy top-rated closing pitchers such as Park Young-hyun (KT), Kim Taek-yeon (Doosan), and Jeong Hae-young (KIA) on the day. Lee Young-ha (Doosan), and Cho Hyung-joon (KT) are also preparing to add strength in the middle. Korea, which has all its plans twisted due to its defeat in the match against Taiwan, needs to win all four remaining games to see it advance to the Super Round. A robust bullpen session for Korea, which will meet Cuba and Japan consecutively, is a big boost.