‘3G Consecutive QS+’ Wizard Legion Aces, Flowy ‘Hanwha Tasun’ to be Tied Up Too

“Homegrown ace” Ko Young-pyo is the centerpiece of the KT Wiz starting lineup, and he’ll be in charge of starting the week.

KT will play an away game against the Hanwha Eagles of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at the Daejeon Hanwha Life Eagles Park on the 27th. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration’s forecast, there is no rain in the forecast for the afternoon, so the game is likely to start normally.

Pitchers Ko Young-pyo and Felix Peña will take the mound for their respective teams, with the former serving as the ace of the lineup.

Ko has been on a roll since June. In three starts, he went 3-0 with a 1.71 ERA in 21 innings pitched, earning a win in each outing and earning a Quality Start Plus (QS+). Coincidentally, two of the three games were against the Lotte Giants, where Ko shut down a Lotte batting lineup that had been red-hot for two months.

In particular, in his last two outings, on April 15 against the Incheon SSG Landers and on April 21 against the Suwon Lotte, Ko showed off his steady stuff, pitching a no-hitter.메이저놀이터

In the Lotte game, he allowed just four hits. KT manager Lee Kang-cheol praised him after the game, saying, “He showed his crisis management skills early in the game and made the game winnable with his ‘Go Young-pyo-like’ game management.”

However, this is the first time Ko has pitched against Hanwha since the start of the season. Ko, who has faced hitters from eight different clubs at least once this year, will be making his first start for Hanwha in 294 days, since September 6 last year. His performance against Hanwha last year was modest, with two wins and a 2.95 ERA in three games and 18⅔ innings.

The Hanwha bats, which have been “breaking out” this month, have not been doing too badly lately either. In June, Hanwha’s team batting average and ERA were 0.266 (6th) and 4.05 (5th), respectively. The bats have been particularly strong in the early innings. In the month of June, Hanwha’s batting average in the first through third innings is 0.314, the only team in the league with a batting average above 3%. They’ve also hit seven home runs, making it easy to harass starting pitchers.

With Peña as the starter, Hanwha is cautiously looking at a five-game winning streak. It will be interesting to see if Ko Young-pyo can prove his ace credentials once again and lead his team to victory.