“I think a forkball or other large-angle breaking ball will be effective against Australia.”
Kang-Cheol Lee, coach of the Korean national baseball team, announced the final entry for the World Baseball Classic (WBC) on the 4th and briefly showed a sketch of the operation of the mound.
Korean baseball, which suffered defeat in the first round of the WBC in 2013 and 2017, seeks to restore its honor through this tournament.
The most important game for our national team, which belongs to Group B in the first round of the finals with Japan, Australia, Czech Republic and China, to secure a ticket to the quarterfinals, which is given to the second place in the group, is the match against Australia.
Lotte Giants finishing pitcher Kim Won-joong (30), whose main weapon is a ‘big-angled ball’, was selected according to Lee’s idea.
According to Statties, a website specializing in Korean baseball records, in the 2022 season, Kim Won-joong used 44.7% of fastballs, 46.6% of splitters (pokeballs), and 8.4% of curveballs.
Kim Won-joong, who uses a forkball that falls in front of the strike zone at high speed and a curve with a large drop, is about to be verified on the international stage.
In a telephone interview with Yonhap News on the 5th, Kim Won-joong said, “I heard that the forkball and curveball that I throw well (non-Asian players) are difficult because they are unfamiliar pitches.” I will prepare for it,” he said.
Athletes competing in the WBC usually expect to face off against some of the best players in the world.
It’s not difficult to hear from the players, ‘I want to catch Shohei Ohtani’ or ‘I want to strike out against Mike Trout’.
However, Kim Won-joong calmly said, “If you are conscious of the name of the batter, you will lose.”
It means that he will erase his name altogether and throw the ball he has to his heart’s content, rather than shrinking at the value of the hitter’s name.
Kim Won-joong said, “They are also the same baseball players. If you tremble, you lose, and I will just go out and block hard.”
Just as Kwan-woo, who is about to face off against Hwa-ung in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, said, ‘I’ll come back before the hot drink cools down’, Kim Won-joong even showed his spirit, saying, “The best result is to strike out all the batters.”
Instead, he looked forward to playing in the same uniform as players he would normally encounter as enemies.
Kim Won-joong said, “I’m now a teammate with the players I talked to for a while during the season.”
Wearing the Taegeuk mark for the first time is also a pleasant excitement for Kim Won-joong.
He said, “Even as a student, if I had to go to the national team, I got hurt. It was the first time I went to the national team, and I received many congratulatory calls from here and there, and I felt again that it was a great thing.”
The WBC, which will be held in March, is a competition that puts a little more physical pressure on the pitcher than on the hitter.
Kim Won-joong said, “I prepared after being included in the WBC interest list earlier. I started exercising earlier than usual.”토토