“I guess you could say I was stopped. We just didn’t get the timing.”
The South Korean baseball team defeated Hong Kong in their first game of the Asian Games. While the win is good, there’s a clear area of criticism. The bats. It was strangely frustrating. They broke through in the eighth inning, but through seven innings, they were lethargic.
South Korea defeated Hong Kong 10-0 in the first inning of their baseball Group B match at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games at the Xiaoxing Baseball & Softball Center on Monday in Xiaoxing, Zhejiang, China. It was a cold win in the eighth inning.
Starter Won Tae-in pitched four innings of one-hit ball, striking out eight. He was scratched. The bullpen was also good. Jung Woo-young, Choi Ji-min, Jang Hyun-seok, and Park Young-hyun each pitched a scoreless inning.
At the plate, Moon Bo-kyung went 1-for-2 with a leadoff double and two RBIs, and Kim Hye-sung went 3-for-3 with a run-scoring double and a game-tying single. Noh Si-hwan had one hit, one RBI and three walks, and Yoon Dong-hee had two hits and two RBI.
Choi Ji-hoon also had three hits. Park Sung-young had one hit, one RBI, one walk and one run scored, and Kim Hyung-joon had one hit, one walk and one run scored. Jang-Dan pounded out 13 hits and drew nine walks.
10-0. If this were a KBO game, we’d call it a clean sweep. But this was an international tournament. And the opponent was Hong Kong. This is a team that deserves to win by a wide margin.
It’s a shame the bats didn’t listen. There were pitchers throwing balls in the 80 kilometers per hour range on the scoreboard. The fastest pitchers are in the 120 kilometers per hour range. That’s like a middle schooler.
They didn’t focus on the slower pitches. I had a lot of desire to hit it, and I naturally exerted myself. It’s impossible to get a hard hit. When the slower pitches were followed by slower changeups, my timing was even more off.
By the fifth inning, she was 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. Except for Moon Bo-kyung’s single in the first inning, there was not a single hit. We did a good job of getting runners to second and third base, but lacked the power to bring them home.
They went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position in the sixth inning and 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position in the seventh inning. The chants from the Chinese crowd continued to grow louder.
It could have been a humiliating victory. In the end, they scored a bunch of runs to close the gap, and they got it done. The important thing is that it happened. Of course, we got the result, but the timing was unfortunate. It was a batting feast.
We meet Taiwan on the 2nd. This team is also aiming for gold. Their power is also strong. If they continue to hit like they did in the early and middle of the day, it could be really difficult. In a game played at the same time, Chinese Taipei defeated Thailand 12-1 in the seventh inning.
After the game, coach Ryu Jung-il said, “In the beginning, the batters were a little nervous, and the ball was slow, so they couldn’t catch the timing. Fortunately, in the fourth inning, Kim Hye-sung broke through. I think it’s safe to say that we got it done. Today, too, the pitchers behind me were faster than the pitchers in front of me, so the timing was right,” he explained.
Kim also said, “We just didn’t get the timing right. Everything else is an excuse. It’s not all about restraint. The opponent took advantage of the timing. Still, when we relaxed in the second half of the match, our timing was right, and the result came.”
Still, it’s worth noting that they only scored in the eighth inning. If it was a temporary problem, it might not be a big deal if it was simply a case of getting caught in an ‘arirang ball’.토토사이트
The Taiwanese pitcher’s ball is bound to be faster than the Hong Kong pitcher’s anyway. You have to see the 150 kilometers per hour ball again, and you have to react. After the game, coach Liu Zhong-il said, “We’ll see.” On the one hand, it gives us a chance to do what we’ve always done.
We had double-digit hits as a team, and we had 10 walks. It’s not that the offense hasn’t been good. Against Chinese Taipei, the ‘eighth inning version’ of the bat will have to come out. If not, they could lose to Chinese Taipei in the group stage like they did five years ago and face a tough road to gold.