The World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team is challenging to advance to the semifinals in 14 years. What are Korea’s strengths from the perspective of the ‘Suzerain’ United States?
On the 12th (Korean time), MLB.com, the official homepage of the Major League Baseball (MLB), introduced the rosters of the WBC participating countries and introduced a noteworthy point about the Korean team.
The Korean national team, led by Lee Kang-cheol (57) KT, will begin its WBC schedule with a game against Australia on March 9th. Korea, which reached the semifinals in both the 2006 and 2009 tournaments, is set out to restore its honor.
To this end, Korea summoned Korean-American Tommy Edman (28, St. Louis) for the first time, and brought in big leaguer Kim Ha-seong (28, San Diego). The center infield, Jekyll, is Korea’s strength. MLB.com also rated Korea’s Keystone as an overall upper-middle class.
Existing aces Kim Gwang-hyun (35, SSG) and Yang Hyeon-jong (35, KIA) are also in good health. Here, MLB.com also mentioned Eui-ri Lee (21, KIA) and Joon So-jun (22, KT) as starting resources to note.
But MLB.com noticed something else먹튀검증. It was the bullpen. The media expected their performance, saying, “Pay attention to when Korea takes the lead in the game.” In particular, Ko Woo-seok (25, LG) and Jeong Cheol-won (24, Doosan), two ‘Jamsil Pilseungjo’, were mentioned.
Ko Woo-seok appeared in 61 games last year and recorded 4 wins, 2 losses, 42 saves, and an ERA of 1.48. In particular, he showed salty water pitching, giving up only 1 earned run in 21 games and 22⅓ innings since August. The media also picked him as the most influential finisher.
Go Woo-seok, the third adult national team selection this time, also has a personal task to wash away the nightmare of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics semifinal match against Japan (2 hits, 2 walks in ⅔ innings, 1 strikeout, 3 runs lost).
Unlike Go Woo-seok, Jeong Cheol-won is selected for the national team for the first time. After becoming a regular player in May of last year, he recorded 4 wins, 3 losses, 3 saves, 23 holds, and an average ERA of 3.10 in 58 games and 72⅔ innings, making him the rookie of the year. It was his first season in the first team, but he showed a pitch that overwhelmed opponents with strong guts.
Although the team failed to advance to the Korean Series for 8 consecutive years and fell to the bottom, Cheol-Won Jeong’s performance was excellent. Thanks to that, he was able to wear the Taegeuk mark.
The WBC is a tournament with a pitch limit. For this reason, the number of innings for starting pitchers is relatively small, and the use of bullpen pitchers must be planned. In the two tournaments that reached the semifinals, Korea defeated baseball powerhouses in turn with high-quality relief pitchers such as Koo Dae-seong (53), Oh Seung-hwan (41, Samsung), and Jung Hyun-wook (45).
While Gu Gu-jin’s role is still important in this tournament, the performance of Go Woo-seok and Jung Cheol-won, who were taken as the subject of attention in the United States, also became a point to pay attention to.