The professional baseball team LG Twins is on a five-game winning streak.
LG won 2-1 against Hanwha in a game held at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on the 27th. Starting pitcher Song Seung-ki delivered a surprising performance, going 7 innings with 1 hit, 1 walk, 5 strikeouts, and no earned runs. After returning from military service last year, this was Song Seung-ki's first appearance as a starting pitcher in his professional career. He showcased powerful pitching without any nerves in front of a full house of 23,750 fans at Jamsil Stadium.
In the first inning, Song Seung-ki struck out the leadoff hitter Kim Tae-yeon with a 150 km/h fastball for a swinging strikeout. He also struck out Moon Hyun-bin with a 148 km/h fastball and ended the inning with Floriel grounding out to second base, making it a three-up, three-down inning. In the second inning, he retired the middle order of Hanwha, which included No Si-hwan, Chae Eun-sung, and Ahn Chi-hong, in order with just 8 pitches.
In the third inning, Song faced a crisis when he allowed a leadoff double to Lim Jong-chan. A sacrifice bunt advanced the runner to third with one out. He overcame the crisis by striking out Shim Woo-jun and Kim Tae-yeon back-to-back. His slider was on point. After the fourth inning, he had three consecutive three-up, three-down innings in the fifth and sixth, maintaining no earned runs.
In the seventh inning, he retired leadoff hitter Moon Hyun-bin with a foul fly out to third base, handling 13 consecutive batters without a hit. He issued a walk to Floriel after throwing 4 balls with two strikes to him. A wild pitch occurred during No Si-hwan's at-bat, putting runners on first and second with one out. Although No Si-hwan hit a big foul home run, he managed to get out of the inning with a groundout to third base. With two outs and runners on second base, Chae Eun-sung also grounded out to third base, escaping a significant crisis.
The LG lineup was held to just 1 hit against Hanwha's starter Moon Dong-joo through the fifth inning. After two outs in the sixth, they created opportunities at first and second base with Song Chan-yi's double and a walk, and again had first and second base chances with back-to-back walks after two outs in the seventh inning, but could not deliver the decisive hit.
In the eighth inning, tied at 0-0 and after two outs, Austin hit a single to right field, followed by Moon Bo-kyung's single to left field, creating a chance with runners on first and third. Oh Ji-hwan walked, loading the bases. With two outs and the bases loaded, Kim Hyun-soo hit a timely single to right field, bringing two runners home.
In the top of the eighth inning, following Park Myung-geun, Kim Kang-ryul took the mound in the top of the ninth. After allowing a timely single to Floriel with two outs and a runner on second base, he permitted one run but managed to secure the one-run victory by catching No Si-hwan's pop-up to the shortstop with two outs and a runner on first.
LG extended its winning streak to five games. All five starting pitchers performed well. The No. 1 starter, Chirinus, achieved a quality start in the opening game against Lotte on the 22nd, pitching 6 innings with 5 hits, 3 walks, 8 strikeouts, and 2 earned runs to become the winning pitcher. The second starter, Son Joo-young, also achieved a no-earned-run victory against Lotte on the 23rd, pitching 7 innings with 1 hit, 2 walks, and 5 strikeouts.
Hernandez became the winning pitcher against Hanwha on the 25th, pitching 7 innings with 1 hit, 1 walk, and 8 strikeouts without allowing any earned runs. On the 26th against Hanwha, Lim Chan-kyu pitched 9 innings, throwing 100 pitches with 2 hits, 2 walks, and 5 strikeouts, achieving his first complete game shutout.
On the 27th, fifth starter Song Seung-ki continued the strong performance of the starting rotation, throwing 7 scoreless innings. Although he did not become the winning pitcher, it was an impressive pitching performance in his first start.
After the game, Song Seung-ki responded to a question about whether he felt burdened due to the strong performance of the 1-4 starters by saying, "If I can pitch 5 innings, that would be good, if I can get through 6 innings, that would be even better, and if I can pitch 7 innings, then I'd consider it a success. Before the game, I focused on one batter at a time, and I ended up pitching until the seventh inning." He added, "I'm satisfied with pitching well today rather than not becoming the winning pitcher."
The records of LG's starting rotation are impressive. In 5 games, they have 4 wins and no losses, with 36 innings pitched and only 2 earned runs allowed. The earned run average is 0.50. Although it's only the first 5 games, the numbers are remarkable. Hanwha's starting rotation recorded an earned run average of 2.36 over 5 games, but they have no wins.
[OSEN]