Daejeon: It has been nearly two decades in the making, and Ryu Hyun-jin of the Hanwha Eagles and Kim Kwang-hyun of the SSG Landers, two iconic pitchers in the annals of South Korean baseball, will finally start a regular-season game opposite each other. Barring any last-minute weather change or sudden shifts in the teams' pitching plans, Ryu, 38, and Kim, 37, are scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Saturday at Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark in Daejeon, 140 kilometers south of Seoul.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Ryu, who made his Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) debut in 2006, and Kim, who followed a year later, have been among the very best starters of their generations. Ryu won both the regular-season MVP and the Rookie of the Year awards in 2006. Kim helped his SK Wyverns -- the former incarnation of the Landers -- win the Korean Series title as a raw rookie in 2007 and then won the regular-season MVP award in 2008.
Ryu won a couple of ERA titles and led the KBO in strikeouts five times between 2006 and 2012, while Kim nearly won the Triple Crown in 2008. Both also pitched in Major League Baseball -- Ryu from 2013 to 2023, and Kim from 2020 to 2021 -- and they did not face each other there.
They've pitched in the same game just twice previously, and in meaningless ones at that -- at the 2010 All-Star Game and a preseason game in 2011. The closest they had come to dueling each other in the regular season was May 23, 2010, when the game in Daejeon was rained out with both left-handers in the midst of excellent seasons. They only ended up posing for photos together.
On other occasions, managers on either side had deliberately moved those pitchers around in the rotation to avoid having them go up against each other -- so as not to create too much distraction or to put the players in unnecessarily stressful spots. The mood has changed this season, with Eagles manager Kim Kyung-moon and Landers skipper Lee Sung-yong both willing to give fans what they've craved for years.
Ryu is having a solid season for first-place Eagles, with a 6-4 record and a 3.07 ERA, while Kim has a 5-7 record with a 4.01 ERA following a couple of one-run outings in a row with the Landers in seventh place. Both may be past their primes, neither able to throw heat and dominate hitters like before, but their names still mean something for KBO fans of certain vintage. Teams across the league now have much younger fan bases, and those who never saw Ryu and Kim at the height of their powers will be treated to the long-awaited matchup this weekend.
When recently asked about the potential showdown against Kim, Ryu responded, "My job is to retire the opposing hitters, regardless of who is pitching for the other team." Kim, on the other hand, seems to be embracing the occasion more. "I heard what he said, but I bet he will be fired up for this. I think he will throw his hardest pitch of the season against us," Kim quipped Wednesday before a game against the Samsung Lions. "I love that we're getting so much attention now. Honestly, when I was younger, I didn't want to face him because it was going to be too stressful. But now, I'm more comfortable with this. And I don't know if we will get another opportunity like this. I think it's going to be fun."