Perhaps, it was not meant to be from the beginning. Doosan Bears foreign pitcher Keisho Shirakawa (23)’s attempt at the KBO League ended with a challenging ending. 안전놀이터
Doosan eliminated Keisho Shirakawa from its first-team entry ahead of an away game against the NC Dinos on the 27th. According to the Doosan club, Shirakawa felt pain in his right elbow after taking the mound against the Hanwha Eagles on the 23rd, and he was diagnosed with a bad ligament condition after the examination, making it difficult to take the mound for the rest of the season. In fact, he is out of the season.
Shirakawa, from Tokushima Prefecture, Japan, played for the Tokushima Indigo Sox in the Japanese independent league and dreamed of entering the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) before coming to Korea in May after signing an alternative foreign player contract with SSG Landers.
Shirakawa, who pitched in five games and played 23 innings in his first professional game in the KBO League, showed his adaptation to the league with two wins, two losses and an ERA of 5.09. As a result, SSG was deeply troubled with Roenis Elias and Shirakawa, and eventually chose to keep Elias.
The next destination for Shirakawa, whose contract with SSG has expired, was Doosan. Doosan, which needed starting pitcher resources to fill Brandon Waddell’s injury gap, signed a six-week total of 4 million yen contract with Shirakawa on July 10. It was about 2.2 times the total amount of 1.8 million yen at the time of signing with SSG.
The team moved to Jamsil Baseball Stadium, a representative pitcher-friendly stadium in the KBO League, leaving Incheon SSG Landers Field, a “home run factory,” and as it was in the process of gradually adapting to the league’s atmosphere, expectations that Shirakawa would perform better increased.
Shirakawa, however, was sluggish in his four appearances, with one win and one loss and an earned run average of 6.61 points. He had to fill five innings only once. On August 8, the first game against the LG Twins, he filled six innings but gave up six runs.
While expectations were changing to disappointment, Shirakawa turned the tables on the 16th with four hits and no runs in eight innings against KT Wiz on the 18th. After that, Doosan signed an extension contract with Shirakawa on the condition of 1.4 million yen for 15 days on the 21st after Brandon’s return was delayed.
On the 23rd, when he took his first appearance after signing an extension contract, Shirakawa became a losing pitcher with five runs on six hits (one homer) in four innings. To make matters worse, he even suffered an elbow injury, which ended the season without meeting the remaining contract period. Doosan invested a total of 5.4 million yen (about 49.9 million won) on two occasions, but Shirakawa left a poor performance of 2 wins, 3 losses and an ERA of 6.03 in seven games.
When Shirakawa joined SSG, he said, “As his name is K-Show, I will show you a strikeout show,” and kept his promise. During 23 innings, he took away a whopping 27 strikeouts and recorded 10.57 strikeouts per nine innings. On the other hand, his ball control problem, which he was concerned about, was not serious at 3.52 walks per nine innings.
After joining the Doosan Bears, however, the number of strikeouts per nine innings was halved to 4.98 and the number of walks per nine innings nearly doubled to 6.29. Above all, the team was very sluggish in five games with three losses and an earned run average of 8.44 in its home stadium, Jamsil.
Doosan tried to resolve its concerns by recruiting Shirakawa, but failed to achieve the desired result. Shirakawa also tried to challenge the NPB stage based on his experience in the KBO League, but his future was uncertain due to an elbow injury. Doosan and Shirakawa’s companionship ended in a false meeting.
