The combined win total of the four foreign pitchers in Doosan Bears uniforms this year is less than that of Samsung Lions ace Won Tae-in. Despite the lack of foreign pitching luck, manager Lee Seung-yeop kept his promise to fans after last year’s wild-card game.
In baseball, Doosan clinched fourth place with one game left in the regular season with a 4-3 victory in the season finale (Game 16) of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League against the Lotte Giants at Sajik Stadium in Busan on April 26, clinching fourth place. The team extended its lead over fifth-place KT Wiz and SSG Landers to 2.5 games and will begin fall baseball at home regardless of the outcome of the Changwon NC Dinos game on April 28.
Rewind to this time last year. In his first year at the helm of Doosan, Lee Seung-yup, who had no managerial experience, led the team to a fifth-place finish, returning the team to the fall stage for the first time in two years after a disastrous ninth-place finish in the 2022 season. However, the team’s fight for third place ended in fifth place due to a lack of heart, and the team’s wild-card deciding game against NC ended in a one-game loss.
At the final camp in November,
Coach Lee Seung-yeop said, “Is fifth place really a good performance or a bad performance, or is it a regret?” “Sometimes I think I did well, and sometimes I think it’s a regret. I had mixed feelings. The fans had high expectations, so I think they were disappointed. We finished fifth, so next year we have to go higher. I will try to get the fans’ applause higher than fifth place,” said the second-year coach.
Doosan Front also had a busier than ever Stovrig in their quest for a higher ranking. The team re-signed the Raul Alcantara-Brandon Waddell duo on Dec. 21, brought in a new foreign slugger in Henry Ramos, completed an early foreign recruitment drive, cracked down on internal free agents Yang Seok-hwan and Hong Gun-hee, and even had KBO home run legend Lee Seung-yeop give a rare one-on-one lesson at the offseason camp to revitalize Jae-hwan Kim, the “Jamsil big gun.
However, all of this preparation was not enough to help the foreign pitchers shine. It started with the shock release of ace Raul Alcantara, who was re-signed for a total of $1.5 million (KRW 1.9 billion). He left the team on July 4 after 12 starts with a 2-2 record and a 4.76 ERA due to a series of injuries and struggles. In addition, second-place starter Brandon, who was 7-4 with a 3.12 ERA in 14 games, injured his shoulder on June 23 against the Daegu Samsung Lions and was out for the season.
Doosan scrambled to find replacements in an effort to stay in the top five amid the bad news.
However, it all came to naught. The team brought in Keisho Shirakawa from Japan’s independent league as a short-term replacement for Brandon, who was initially ruled out for six weeks, but he struggled with “crowd jitters” and went 2-3 with a 6.03 ERA in seven games. To make matters worse, he developed elbow pain and left for Japan without fulfilling his contract.
Jordan Balazovic, who came to Doosan as Alcantara’s replacement, has struggled to live up to his billing as the “next Dustin Nippert,” going 2-6 with a 4.34 ERA in 11 games. He started with a four-inning, four-run loss to Jamsil Lotte on Aug. 14, but at the height of the standings battle, he went 2-2 with a 7.00 ERA in four games in September. In seven games, 카지노사이트 Yongbyeon pitched 33 innings, averaging about 4.7 innings per game. As a result, manager Lee Seung-yeop is considering switching Balajovic to the bullpen for the remainder of the season and fall baseball.
Alcantara has two wins, Brandon has seven, Shirakawa has two, and Balajovic has two. The four have combined for just 13 wins. Doosan’s Kwak-bin Kwak and Samsung’s Won Tae-in have 15 wins by themselves. There are also many other foreign pitchers who have done their part, including LG Twins’ Dietrick Enns, NC’s Kyle Hart, Kiwoom Heroes’ Enmanuel De Jesus, and KIA Tigers’ James Nail, who have 13 wins.
The collapse of starting pitching due to the foreign farming bumper crop naturally led to a bullpen overload.
Rookie closer Kim Taek-yeon and other back door guys such as Lee Byung-heon, Choi Ji-kang, Hong Gun-hee, and Lee Young-ha made frequent appearances, which sparked some controversy, but it was necessary to use the best pitching staff in the game to stem the slide in the standings. It made no sense to conserve the bullpen’s stamina when the starting rotation was broken, as it would only lead to more injured pitchers packing up early.
Doosan leads the league in bullpen innings pitched this season with 593⅓ innings. The starters, on the other hand, rank eighth in ERA (5.09), innings pitched (681⅓ innings), and team quality starts (42). If you narrow it down to quality starts plus, the team falls even further to 9th in the league (7). In response, Lee said, “I am proud of the young pitchers such as Kim Taek-yeon, Lee Byung-heon, and Choi Ji-kang, who pitched frequently due to the team’s circumstances, and I am sorry for them.”
In the end, Lee’s eventful second season ended with a fourth-place finish, one spot higher than last year. Doosan was finally able to start fall baseball at home, and never before in the history of the wild-card round has the fifth-place team beaten the fourth-place team to advance to the semifinals. Doosan’s accomplishment is truly remarkable because it was accomplished with virtually no foreign pitching. Manager Lee Seung-yeop, who has led the team to the fall for two consecutive years, has his sights set higher, saying, “Now that we’ve secured fourth place, we’ll prepare well for the rest of the season and play well in the fall.”
