Did the fall of the waist shift to the back door? Kim Won-joong (31), a long-haired closing pitcher who served as a strong gatekeeper for the Lotte Giants bullpen, has lost points and is on the rocks.
Kim Won-joong took the mound in the top of the ninth inning when his team was leading 6-5 in the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League regular season home game against the LG Twins at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan on the 25th.
Against Oh Ji-hwan, Kim Won-joong struck out swinging through a fork ball after catching the ball count in favor with a fastball. However, as his ball control was shaky at the bat of the next batter, Austin Dean, he ended up giving up a walk after six pitches.
Kim Won-joong also made a 2-2 ball count through a fork ball against No. 4 Moon Bo-kyung, but he allowed consecutive walks as two fork balls left the strike zone a lot. After the catcher visited the mound once, Kim Won-joong struck out swinging against the tricky hitter Park Dong-won.
Kim had only one out count left until his save, but failed to keep the lead. He threw a breaking ball to Koo Bon-hyuk, who came out as a substitute for Choi Won-young’s at-bat in the sixth, before getting a hit in front of center field. Meanwhile, second baseman Austin came home and the score tied at 6-6. Kim looked frustrated.
Kim treated No. 7 Park Hae-min with a foul fly to third baseman, and grabbed his third out count. However, Kim’s blon save did not go away. Lotte lost the game in the 11th inning.
Kim has lost more points in the second half of the season including Tuesday’s game. Kim, who has played in six games since the All Star game, has allowed five runs (four earned runs) during five ⅓ innings with an ERA of 6.75. Notably, he has lost points in all of the recent three games.
At the match against the Samsung Lions in Daegu on Monday, he pitched in the bottom of the eighth inning when his team was leading 5-4, and had two out-counts, and could have made multi-inning saves. However, after giving up a walk to Lee Jae-hyun at the bottom of the ninth inning, his fork ball thrown to Ruben Cardenas made sense, making it a two-run homerun to come from behind to end the game. Then at the match against the Sajik LG Twins on Sunday, he came up in the top of the ninth inning when his team was facing 1-1 with Kim Hyun-soo, and became a losing pitcher after a timely hit from behind. 고소득알바
Kim Won-joong is the last bastion of Lotte’s bullpen this year. He has taken the mound in 36 games this year, losing five games and 16 saves (4 Blons) with an earned run average of 3.00. He displayed an earned run average of 2.41 until the end of June, keeping the back door firmly intact. Notably, he defended the bullpen along with Kim Sang-soo (36) even when existing must-win teams such as Koo Seung-min (34) and Choi Joon-yong (23) were on shaky ground.
However, Kim Sang-soo was the first to fail. He had secured 15 holds this year to secure his win, but his ERA rose to 5.68 in eight games in July. Consequently, he was excluded from the entry list for the first team on July 22 to manage his physical stamina. He did not avoid consecutive games or multi-inning despite his young age, and eventually got sick. “I really have nothing to say to (Kim Sang-soo),” Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung (57) also said, expressing regret. On top of that, Lotte is struggling in the bullpen, as its closing pitcher Kim Won-joong was shaken. Indeed, Kim even said, “I am worried about my team’s victory.”
In particular, Kim Won-joong will become the first free agent (FA) in his life and enter the market at the end of this season. He has been consistent for many years, but he will have to work harder to sign a contract of the scale he wants.
Kim Won-joong is one of the best closers in Lotte’s history. Starting with 25 saves as a closing pitcher in 2020, he became the first team to surpass 100 saves last year. After all, Kim Won-joong is also the keyword to revive the Lotte bullpen.
