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 in Daejeon, 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 said Ryu did not have any physical problems. He carried a 6-4 record with a solid 3.07 ERA 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 before Ryu recorded the first out of the game.
Choi Ji-hoon led off the game 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 got Lee Ji-young to ground out back to the mound, and then Kim was doubled off at second after Jeong Jun-jae lined out to second baseman Hwang Young-mook. Ryu ended up throwing 32 pitches in that opening frame, and he gave up at least five runs in a start for the first time since Aug. 7 last year. The Landers pounded out 13 hits. 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. Also in this game, Kim also topped 100 innings and 100 strikeouts for the 13th time in his career.
Kim pitched around a leadoff single by Lee Jin-young in the first inning by retiring the next three batters. He threw a clean second inning with two strikeouts and had another three-up, three-down inning in the third. He walked Luis Liberato to begin the fourth inning before getting Moon Hyun-bin to bounce into a double play and retiring Roh Si-hwan on a popout.
Kim gave up a single to Chae Eun-seong to start the fifth but then retired the next three batters in a row. The Eagles got to Kim in the sixth inning, piecing together four straight hits to score their first run of the game. With the bases still loaded and nobody out, Kim limited the damage to just one more run when Roh hit into a 6-4-3 double play. Kim closed out the inning by getting Chae to ground out to third for his final out of the night.
After the game, Kim said it was hard not to get caught up in the hype surrounding the matchup, given so much media attention and the palpable buzz in the stands. "I was hoping we would get into a pitching duel and have a great game," Kim said. "I appreciated my teammates putting up so many runs on the board from the first inning. On the other hand, I didn't feel great seeing Hyun-jin get pulled so early in the game. I'd love to go up against him once again when we are both at the top of our game."
Kim certainly was at his best on this night. In the bottom of the second inning, Kim threw a fastball that touched 150 kilometers per hour (kph) -- his first pitch to reach that mark since April 20, 2024. When told of his velocity, Kim asked back, "Is that really true?" "I was worried I would never hit 150 kph this year. I feel pretty fortunate," he said. "I dealt with some stiffness in my shoulder last month, and I've been trying to get my arm into better shape since then. I will keep taking good care of my arm and throwing good pitches."
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. 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 had previously faced each other at the All-Star Game in 2010 and a preseason game in 2011. They were scheduled to start opposite each other on May 23, 2010, in Daejeon, but that game was rained out. The two hurlers had also come close to having their duels on other occasions, but managers on either side had intentionally made last-minute changes to their pitching rotations -- so as not to create too much distraction or to put the players in unnecessarily stressful spots.