KIA pitcher Kim Gun-guk (35) made his first start in 1479 days and delivered an emotional pitching performance.바카라

Kim took the mound against LG at Jamsil Stadium on the 1st. Although he didn’t live up to the five-inning, minimum-three-inning expectations of his manager before the game, he managed to keep the LG bats to a minimum. Kim allowed two runs on two hits and two walks in 2⅔ innings (46 pitches).

After being released by Lotte after the 2021 season, Kim took a year off before joining KIA after undergoing a tryout prior to this season. In 11 games (47⅓ innings) in the Futures League, he went 2-2 with a 4.94 ERA. This was his first start of the season.

Kim’s last start was on 12 June 2019 against LG Electronics in Jamsil with Lotte. That was 1479 days ago. Before the game, manager Kim Jong-guk said, “It would be best if Kim Gun-gook could pitch five innings. I hope he can go at least three innings.”

The first inning or two was good. We started with a triple play in the first. We walked Austin to lead off the second, but retired the next three batters.

But in the third inning, we were in trouble. He gave up a leadoff triple to Park Hae-min to right-centre field. He then gave up a single to left to Shin Min-jae. The runner from first stole second, and the runner from second tagged up to third when Hong Chang-ki flied out to right field.

Moon Sung-joo’s grounder to the second baseman allowed the runner from third to score the second run of the inning. Two batters later, Kim was replaced by Kim Ki-hoon, who gave up a straight bunt single to Kim Hyun-soo.

Despite Kim failing to complete three innings, KIA broke the game open with a five-run fourth inning, with Kim Ki-hoon (1⅓ scoreless innings), Park Joon-pyo (1⅓ scoreless innings), Lee Jun-young (⅔ scoreless innings), Jeon Sang-hyun (1⅔ scoreless innings), and Choi Ji-min (1⅓ scoreless innings) taking over on the mound.

After the game, Kim said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the mound for the first team, so I was nervous and excited. I prepared with as many positive thoughts as I could, and I thought about the moments when I pitched well.” His last first-team game was against Kiwoom on 11 September 2021. It had been 658 days since he had pitched for the first team.

“I focused on pitching aggressively today,” he said. Before the game, catcher Han Jun-soo told me that I had a good fastball, and I pitched mainly with my fastball in the game. At the Futures, I worked with coach Son Seung-rak to improve my fastball. However, I was disappointed that I couldn’t keep my innings long.”

“I wanted to play baseball so badly after taking a year off, and it was hard, but my wife gave me a lot of support from the sidelines. She gave me a lot of encouragement, so I was able to get back on the mound.