Daejeon: The most highly anticipated starting pitching matchup in South Korean baseball in years fizzled before even taking off Saturday, with one pitcher being pulled after just one inning of work. Ryu Hyun-jin of the Hanwha Eagles and Kim Kwang-hyun of the SSG Landers got the starting nod against each other for their first regular-season showdown in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), setting up a duel between two of the greatest hurlers in the league's 43-year history.
According to Yonhap News Agency, before Kim even took the mound, Ryu was torched for five runs on four hits and two walks in the top of the first, a nightmarish outing before a sellout crowd of 17,000 at Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark, 140 kilometers south of Seoul. The Landers went on to win the game 9-3.
After Kim worked a scoreless bottom of the first, Ryu did not come back out for the top of the second inning, with right-hander Um Sang-back taking the mound instead. It was the shortest start of Ryu's KBO career, which began in 2006.
The Eagles reported that Ryu did not have any physical problems. He carried a 6-4 record with an ERA of 3.07 into this game and had tossed five shutout innings against the KT Wiz last Sunday in his previous outing. But on Saturday, the first six Landers batters reached base before Ryu recorded the first out of the game.
In the first inning, Choi Ji-hoon led off with a single, and An Sang-hyun drew a walk, before Choi Jeong knocked in the first run with a single. Guillermo Heredia's double made it a 2-0 game for the Landers, and after Ko Myeong-jun worked a six-pitch walk to load the bases, Kim Seong-uk brought all three runners home with a double to left center. Ryu ended up throwing 32 pitches in that opening frame, marking the first time he gave up at least five runs in a start since August 7 of the previous year.
The Landers pounded out 13 hits, while Ryu fell to 6-4, and his ERA went up to 3.56. With plenty of early run support, Kim collected his sixth win of the season by holding the Eagles to two runs on six hits over six innings. He struck out three and walked one, as his ERA went down from 4.01 to 3.96. Kim also topped 100 innings and 100 strikeouts for the 13th time in his career.
Ryu, 38, and Kim, 37, are iconic left-handed starters who have long made their marks in the KBO. Ryu debuted in 2006 and won both the regular-season MVP and the Rookie of the Year awards. Kim followed a year later and nabbed his MVP award in 2008. Both pitchers also had stints in Major League Baseball, with Ryu playing from 2013 to 2023, and Kim from 2020 to 2021, but they did not face each other there. The two hurlers had previously faced each other at the All-Star Game in 2010 and a preseason game in 2011, and had come close on other occasions, but their managers often made last-minute changes to avoid the matchups.