Hanwha Eagles’ Moon Dong-ju (20) will make his first ‘twice-a-week’ start since his debut.
Hanwha will host the Lotte Giants of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Sajik Stadium in Busan.
Hanwha will pitch Moon Dong-ju and Lotte will pitch Charlie Barnes.
In particular, Moon Dong-ju will also take the mound against Daejeon Kiwoom on Sunday, the 18th, according to the rotation order, 안전놀이터 unless there are other variables such as a rainout. This will be the first time since his debut that Moon will start twice a week on a four-day rotation.
Moon started pitching as a sophomore in high school, so he doesn’t have a long history of pitching experience. He also suffered an injury in his rookie season, so Hanwha has been taking care of him this year as they did last year.
Choi Won-ho is trying to limit Moon’s maximum innings pitched this year to around 130, including the Asian Games.
That’s why he’s avoided pitching twice a week. If Moon was to pitch on a Tuesday, he would be removed from the roster to give him a break. He was removed on April 18 and returned on April 30.
However, he recently changed his plan. He decided to pitch twice a week, but with fewer innings and pitches per game.
“I talked to the team,” Choi said, “and we decided to just rotate as long as we control the number of pitches and innings. Instead, if they have two or three bad games like last time, we’ll give them 10 days off. This time, I’m going to go ahead and do it, but I’m going to pitch on four days rest, so I’m going to adjust my pitch count and innings on Tuesday.”
He’ll pitch a maximum of five innings per game. “When I did the math, I realized that five innings would be a good number. If you try plus or minus and think it’s too much, you can add or subtract five innings even if you don’t have a lot of pitches,” Choi said. He added, “I don’t think it’s good to force anything. When it’s bad, I’ll take it out quickly to recover, and when I have extra innings, I’ll go to six or seven on a good day, but most of the time, I think I’ll be able to control it within 100 pitches,” he explained.
In 10 games this year, Moon is 3-4 with a 3.53 ERA. He slumped to an 8.22 ERA in four games in May, but rebounded with two consecutive quality starts, throwing seven scoreless innings against Kiwoom in Daejeon on May 1 and six innings and one run (unearned) against Doosan in Jamsil on May 7.
It was his first start since being selected for the Asian Games. It will be interesting to see what kind of week Moon will have.