Left-hander Ji-min Choi enters in relief in the seventh inning.
South Korean baseball’s Park Se-woong (27, Lotte Giants) proved to be an ace in the hole against Japan.
Park Se-woong
Threw six innings of two-hit ball with two walks and nine strikeouts against Japan in the first game
of the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games Baseball Super Round on Friday at the Shaoxing Baseball
Softball Sports Center in Zhejiang, China.
Park, who entered the Asian Games as a wild card, is the most experienced reliever on the team’s
pitching staff. Starting with the 2017 Asian Professional Baseball Championship (APBC), he has
pitched in three international tournaments, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 World
Baseball Classic (WBC), posting a 1.42 ERA in seven games and 12⅔ innings.
In the second game of the group stage against Chinese Taipei on April 2, he started as the team’s
second pitcher and got off to a shaky start, allowing one hit and two walks in ⅔ of an inning, leaving the bases loaded.
He got out of the first inning unscathed.
Park drew a full-count walk to leadoff hitter Hiroki Nakagawa and then gave up a stolen base. He
struck out the next batter, Naoya Mochizuki, but gave up a single to left to Shoji Kitamura, putting runners on first and third.
However, Tatsuhiko Sato’s grounder to first baseman Moon Bo-kyung (23-LG Twins) followed it all
the way to foul territory and retired Masashi Maruyama on a swinging strike to end the threat.
In the second inning, Kohei Sasagawa, Seifu Suzuki, and Jin Nakamura were all retired on infield singles.
After getting Ryo Kinami to fly out to right field in the third, Park retired Nakagawa and Mochizuki on consecutive swinging strikes to extend his hitting streak to eight batters.
He gave up a leadoff single to Kitamura in the fourth, but struck out Sato and Maruyama before getting Sasagawa to ground out to shortstop.
Park continued his cruise in the fifth.
After giving up a leadoff walk to Suzuki, Park got Nakamura to ground out to second and Kinami to fly out to shortstop to give himself some breathing room. He then induced Nakagawa to strike out swinging with a changeup to end the inning.
Park took the mound in the sixth, striking out Mochizuki and Kitamura before getting Sato to fly out to shortstop.
South Korea made a pitching change in the top of the seventh with a 1-0 lead. Park Se-woong was removed and left-hander Choi Ji-min (20-KIA Tigers) was brought in. 스포츠토토맨