Daegu: A rookie right-hander who has never thrown more than 54 pitches in any game will start a postseason contest Wednesday night with a ticket to the South Korean baseball championship series at stake.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the Hanwha Eagles will send an 18-year-old Jeong Woo-joo to try to close out the Samsung Lions in their best-of-five series in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason at Daegu Samsung Lions Park in the southeastern city of Daegu on Wednesday. The Eagles beat the Lions 5-4 to take a 2-1 series lead and a win will take them to their first Korean Series since 2006. Right-hander Moon Dong-ju was the Eagles' No. 4 starter during the regular season but manager Kim Kyung-moon has been using him as his most lethal weapon out of the bullpen in this series. Moon threw four shutout innings in relief and struck out six in Tuesday's win, meaning he is not available for the first elimination game of the series Wednesday night.
With a lack of other starting options, Kim will turn to Jeong, the No. 2 overall pick at last year's KBO draft.
The Eagles have been careful with Jeong's workload since the start of the season. He spent most of the year pitching in relief and only made two starts in the regular season. Even then, Jeong was capped out at 2 1/3 innings and 54 pitches on Sept. 15, and 3 1/3 innings and 53 pitches two weeks later. Jeong appeared in 51 games but covered just 53 2/3 innings.
He made those innings count by striking out 82 batters and giving up only 34 hits, while posting a 2.85 ERA. Among pitchers who tossed at least 50 innings, Jeong had the KBO's highest strikeouts per nine innings with 13.75.
Jeong averaged 151.2 kilometers per hour (kph) with his four-seam fastball, the 11th-best mark among those with at least 50 innings pitched.
Jeong made his postseason debut in relief on Sunday, a 7-3 Eagles loss, by holding the Lions scoreless in 2/3 of an inning. He threw 18 fastballs and two curveballs, touching 153 kph with his four-seamer.
Realistically, the Eagles won't count on a regular starter's output from Jeong in Game 4. They would be thrilled if he can keep things close for three innings, or one turn through the lineup.
The Lions hitters have already had trouble against hard fastballs this series, unable to get anything off Moon, another hard-throwing right-hander in two of the three games so far.
After tossing four shutout frames Tuesday night, Moon offered Jeong some words of encouragement in his postgame press conference.
"Even though Woo-joo is a rookie, he had such a high strikeout rate. I hope he takes the mound knowing just how good he is," Moon said. "That tells you he's a powerful pitcher. The opposing hitters will not take him lightly and I hope Woo-joo uses that to his advantage."