Doosan’s new ‘Closer’ Cheol-won Jung faced a crisis just two weeks after being given a new position. Coach Lee Seung-yeop’s judgment, who boldly pushed for Jeong Cheol-won’s turn to finish, and Doosan Bears’ fall baseball, which is struggling with back door anxiety that has worsened in the summer, were also questioned.
Doosan fell into a two-game losing streak after losing 5-8 in the 11th game of the season against SSG Landers in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League held at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on the 27th. The season record was 54 wins, 1 draw and 53 losses (.505), and it fell to 6th place, exchanging rankings with the KIA Tigers, who had won 4 consecutive wins.
On the first day of the three-game match against SSG, Doosan was in a good mood, winning 10-1 thanks to Gwak Bin’s strong pitching and the explosion of the batting line. However, in the game on the 26th, the atmosphere was broken as they failed to keep the two-point lead to the end and allowed a turnaround in the 8th inning and lost 5-7.
In the game on the 27th, when SSG ran away, Doosan followed tenaciously 3 times and played a close game that went to overtime, but in the 10th inning the back door collapsed again and they gave up 3 runs and sat down. Perhaps it was the point where it could have been a turning point for entering fall baseball, and it was a series where even a sweep was possible from the winning series, so Doosan had no choice but to be more disappointed.
The successive collapse of the Pil Seung-jo, which they believed in during their two consecutive losses, was directly linked to the defeat. On the 26th, Park Chi-guk, who took the mound at the beginning of the 8th inning with a 5-3 lead, gave Ha Jae-hoon an inside the park home run (ground home run) and a solo home run to Jeon Eui-san, conceding a turnaround with 3 runs at once.
Even closer Jeong Cheol-won was shaken in two consecutive games. In the game on the 26th, Jeong Cheol-won contributed 1 point to Jeon Eui-san with a push walk in the beginning of the 9th inning when the score was 5-6. In the end, Cheol-won Jeong was beaten despite finishing, and the follow-up pitcher Won-joon Choi caught Choi Jun-woo with a double stroke and ended the inning, but it was after the victory had already passed to the opponent.
Nonetheless, the following day, on the 27th, coach Lee Seung-yeop sent Jeong Cheol-won after Kim Myung-shin in the crisis of the 10th inning when the score was tied 5-5, sending Jeong Cheol-won back. However, Jeong Cheol-won allowed the run to be hit by a timely hit in the middle left by Jeon Eui-san, who had allowed a push-out walk the day before in the second out third base situation, while treating first batter Park Seong-han as a ground ball.
Jeong Cheol-won allowed a hit to the next hitter, Ha Jae-hoon, and even committed a wild throw, putting him in a crisis of 2nd, 2nd and 3rd base. And Kim Seong-Hyun got 2 RBIs and timely hits in the left field, widening the score to 5-8. As the ninth hitter, Lee Heung-ryun, was sent out on a walk, and the crisis continued, manager Lee Seung-yeop finally had no choice but to put Jeong Cheol-won on the mound and put Kim Yoo-seong in.
Jeong Cheol-won showed extreme sluggishness with 3 hits, 1 walk and 2 runs while catching one out count that day. Aside from simply failing to save, the blow received by Doosan is not light beyond the consecutive losses in that it showed only the worst performance as the team’s main finisher in two consecutive games, such as a pushout walk and a wild throw.
It is significant that Jeong Cheol-won’s sluggish performance began to hit from the point of transition to the finishing position. On the 15th, coach Lee Seung-yeop changed his position from Hong Gun-hee, who was the previous finisher, to Jeong Cheol-won. Jung Cheol-won has been placed in front of Hong Kun-hee and has mainly played the role of a setup man.
Jeong Cheol-won joined Doosan in the 2018 2nd round of the 2nd round of the 2018 rookie draft, and rose to the first full-time team in 2022, the last season of former coach Kim Tae-hyung, and confidently took a place in Pil Seung-jo. Jeong Cheol-won set a record for the most holds (23 holds) in his debut season by recklessly throwing fastballs over 150 km, and even won the rookie of the year award for the only time in his life. In the 2023 WBC (World Baseball Classic), he won and won the first Taegeuk mark in his life.
No one doubted that Jeong Cheol-won was a lumber capable of taking on Doosan’s closer someday. However, in a situation where he was not fully prepared, the finishing switch, which was somewhat told to an inexperienced young pitcher, and the sudden change of position during the season, seemed to be rather poisonous as a result.
Even until the first half, Jeong Cheol-won digested 40.2 innings in 39 games and showed compliance with 5 wins, 2 saves, 11 holds, 40⅔ innings, and an average ERA of 3.76. However, in August, his pitching content deteriorated sharply with an average ERA of 7.00 in 8 games, 1 loss and 2 saves. In particular, in the last five games he started after changing his finishing position, his ERA soared to 9.64 over 4.2 innings.
There were two saves, but they weren’t very stable. With no major injuries, he only changed his position, and in just a few weeks, he went from being an impregnable setup man to a batting ball pitcher. The current season’s performance is 49 games, 5 wins, 3 losses, 5 saves, 11 holds, and an earned run of 4.35.
This is a record that shows how much pressure his finish requires and how strong his mental power is. Coach Lee Seung-yeop said of Jeong Cheol-won’s classic, “It’s difficult to finish the job. There is no pitcher behind you. Pitchers feel at ease when they think there is a next inning. . At the same time, it can also be interpreted as saying that coach Lee Seung-yeop is not thinking about re-switching Jeong Cheol-won right now.
As manager Lee Seung-yeop explained, it is true that Doosan’s bullpen pitchers are currently in a predicament. Doosan’s August team bullpen ERA is very high at 5.03. In addition to Jeong Cheol-won, previous finisher Hong Kun-hee only recorded an average ERA of 5.59 with 11 matches, 1 loss, 2 holds, and 1 save, and Park Chi-guk recorded an average ERA of 5.11 with 12 matches, 2 wins, 2 losses, and 1 hold. . As of right now, there is no pitcher who has a better pitch than Cheol-Won Jeong, and there is a risk that another change of position in less than two weeks will cause more confusion among pitchers.토토사이트
The problem is that Doosan is currently facing the biggest hurdle to advance into fall baseball, and there are not that many games left. Doosan currently has 36 games left and is in a disadvantageous position as it has the fewest remaining games than KIA (40 games)-NC (38 games).
The reason why Doosan was able to compete in the top 5 by winning 11 consecutive wins at one point in the season was the power of the mound, although the batting line was also the batting line. It was expected that there would come a time when the pace would drop, but it hurts to know that it came at the most important juncture. Attention is focusing on whether pitchers Jeong Cheol-won and Pil Seung-jo will be able to overcome this hurdle on their own, or whether coach Lee Seung-yeop will choose another change.