The Lotte Giants are in full swing with the Hangzhou Asian Games just a month away.
The baseball team’s roster includes two of the country’s best one-two punchers, Park Se-woong and Na Kyun-ahn.
Park is 5-7 with a 3.48 ERA in 21 games, while Na Gyun-an is 6-5 with a 3.65 ERA in 18 games, anchoring the Lotte mound.
While it’s better than losing a bunch of guys who are in the lineup every day, losing two starters is a lot of bleeding.
Lotte is the only one of the 10 teams to lose two starting pitchers and not a reliever.
“We’re going to miss Park Se-woong and Na Kyun-ahn, but it’s a situation we knew about, so we’re preparing for it,” manager Larry Sutton told reporters at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Wednesday.
“We’ll have options for three or four guys to go multiple innings,” Sutton said, explaining that he envisions a “1+1 strategy” (two pitchers pitching a long inning together).
For example, if the opposing team has a lot of left-handed batters in their lineup, they could use left-hander Shim Jae-min and sidearm Han Hyun-hee.
The strategy is to have Shim face as many lefties as possible, and then bring in Han Hyun-hee in the batting order with right-handed hitters to work together for five innings or more.
“She’s been a little off lately, but if she can improve her pitches and her mental game, she can help our team,” he said of Han, who has struggled this month with 10 runs in 11 innings in four games. 먹튀검증