“Kwak Bin will make his last appearance on Monday (18). His head hurts.”
Doosan Bears manager Lee Seung-yeop sighed after the game against the Gwangju KIA Tigers was canceled due to rain on Saturday. Korean ace Kwak Bin, 23, was forced to reschedule his start. Doosan has scheduled Kwak-bin for two more appearances before he is called up to the national team for the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games. As planned, Kwak was scheduled to pitch against the KIA in Gwangju on the 17th and the Samsung Lions in Daegu on the 22nd.
However, the rain messed up Lee’s calculations. Doosan decided to send ace Raul Alcantara, who was scheduled to start on the 16th, to the 17th. With a fifth-place finish and a six-game winning streak on the line, it made sense for Alcantara, who has been in better form of late, to take the mound. As KIA had announced Thomas Pannoni as their starter on the 17th, Doosan had to pull out their foreign starter card to counter.메이저사이트
The problem was Kwak-Bin’s pitching schedule. Kwak-Bin is scheduled to start on Monday, the 18th, against the newly-formed Gwangju KIA. He’ll have to take four days off before pitching again on the 22nd, which is unreasonable even for the sake of the team’s performance. With Kwak-Bin’s recent struggles with his pitches and the high pitch-to-income ratio, the lack of rest could be poisonous. It’s also unnecessary to push a player who is about to be called up to the national team.
Doosan will play a two-game series against the NC Dinos in Jamsil on the 19th and 20th. Third-place NC has been the fastest-paced team in the KBO lately and is a must-win for Doosan if they want to stay in the top five. For now, Doosan has settled on Jang Won-jun and Choi Seung-yong as its starting pitchers for games 19 and 20. With the rotation set until Daegu Samsung’s Brandon Waddell on the 21st, the team now needs to find a starter to replace Kwak-Bin on the 22nd.
Kwak-Bin has developed into one of Doosan’s top starters this season, posting a 10-7 record, 115⅓ innings pitched, and a 3.12 ERA in 21 starts. He reached the 10-win plateau for the first time in his career and is the only Korean starter to remain in the starting rotation for an entire season. It’s understandable that Lee would want to give Kwak-bin as many games as possible before sending him to the national team, but heaven forbid he should have to do so after only one game.
With the addition of Monday’s game, Doosan will have to prepare for an eight-game series from the 17th to the 24th. It is not easy to prepare for an eight-game series when there is a shortage of domestic starting pitchers. Choi Won-jun and Park Shin-ji, who are out of the lineup to treat blisters, are likely to be the alternate starters.
Lee said, “It’s a lot of pressure. I don’t think it will rain for a while, but we have to think about playing eight games. We have to think about the pitching rotation again, and if that happens, we’ll be scrambling again because Kwak Bin won’t be able to pitch on the 22nd. My head is hurting,” he said with a worried look on his face.
Doosan will only have one pitcher, Kwak Bin, on the roster for the Asian Games. It’s one of the few losses among the teams fighting for the top five. Still, the loss of a pitcher who was responsible for 10 of the team’s wins weighs heavily. Lee has been trying to figure out what to do with his starting rotation in Kwak-Bin’s absence.
For now, Alcantara-Brandon-Choi Seung-yong will be locked in, and the other two spots will be up for grabs depending on the rest of the schedule.