All teams in professional baseball are longing for “starter baseball.” Starting pitchers perform well to create the minimum requirement for victory, which naturally leads to the result. Lotte Giants’ starting pitchers are doing a good job of playing the role of “minimal.” But did all of them end up in the end? If they have this question, they should think twice about whether Lotte is qualified for fall baseball.
Lotte’s starting lineup has recorded 47 quality starts (more than six innings and less than three earned runs). In other words, the team has fulfilled the minimum role a starting pitcher should play. Of course, this record has been set in every corner for foreign pitchers Charlie Barnes and Aaron Wilkerson. Barnes and Wilkerson each had 15 quality starts. On top of that, Park Se-woong, a Korean ace who has been enjoying a challenging season this year, also had 11 quality starts. Three starting pitchers have recorded 41 quality starts. It is ranked third in the quality start of the league.
Lotte also recorded quality start plus (more than seven innings with three earned runs or fewer) 18 times. Wilkerson and Barnes also hit seven times, while Park Se-woong threw four times. Quality start plus ranks first overall in the league.
It can be said that the fact that the top three starters played a minimal role in the KBO league, which is safe to say that the team can secure a high win rate. However, Lotte’s current ranking remains in eighth place. In games where the starters performed quality starts, the team failed to secure sufficient wins. It only posted 30 wins, 16 losses and one draw, with a win rate of 655. This is a low win rate, which ranks eighth in the league. KIA (26 wins, 9 losses, 743), LG (36 wins, 13 losses, 735 losses) and Samsung (31 wins, 12 losses, 721 losses) all rank among the top three in terms of win rate at the start of quality games.
Since the bullpen is unstable and squeaky at detailed points, the team is playing games in which it cannot go higher even if the starting pitcher is deployed. It is true that the team is not a lineup that can overwhelm the opponent team, but that does not mean that the team is less competitive. However, details such as defense base running are not considered strong teams yet and teams that are qualified to become fall baseball players.
Lotte had one win and one loss in two games against the Hanwha Eagles on Saturday and Sunday. While starting pitcher Park Se-woong showed good performance by allowing three hits, three walks, six strikeouts and one run during seven innings in overcoming the slump, starting pitcher Barnes on Sunday caused a crisis due to his unstable ball control unlike his previous games, but he managed well by allowing six hits, four walks, five strikeouts and two runs (one earned run) during seven innings. All of them were “Quality Start Plus” pitching, but none of them led to victory.
Hanwha starter Moon Dong-ju and Ryan Weiss also displayed stellar pitching. It looked like a pitcher race. However, the game could have easily won on Wednesday, and the game on Friday could have easily ended up not giving up the game.
He created numerous chances to take the lead in the early days of Sunday, but failed to gain the upper hand in the early stages due to his poor decision-making ability and poor running base, before losing the first run in the end. Still, he showed his determination in the eighth inning to secure a 3-1 come-from-behind victory. 메이저사이트
On Friday, he fended off Hanwha’s offensives early on. By barely overcoming the crisis of losing points, he created a close game. However, second baseman Ko Seung-min spilled Kim Tae-yeon’s ground ball backward in the sixth inning, causing a crisis on his own. Although it was difficult for Ko to cope with the irregular boundaries, he could have handled the situation. Later, he struck out Noh Si-hwan and failed to catch Kim Tae-yeon, who attempted to steal the second base through Operation Andrew, when Ko committed a catch error once again. The timing of the game was close as his throwing and sliding arrived similarly, but as Ko Seung-min spilled the ball backward, the game became a third base with one out. The follow-up cover of center fielder Yoon Dong-hee was not fast either. Eventually, he lost additional points with one out and runners on the third base.
The lack of details has been revealed at various points. Notably, such details are raising questions over whether Lotte is qualified for fall baseball at a time when the team is engaged in a chase for fall baseball at the end of the season. Lotte is four games apart from KT, which ranks eighth and fifth. Although the number of games is the largest, pressure to narrow the gap is bound to increase as time passes.
