“I’m just a guy who goes out to catch whoever is at the plate.”
Lotte Giants Kim Won-joong (30) has grown even more after transforming into a closer in 2020. He had a great sense of mission as ‘the last pitcher to pitch’. It has become a daily routine for him to take the mound with a small score difference or a big crisis, and to face the opponent’s strongest batting line. He has never divided the ‘class’ of the batter he faces. He was just one batter, whether it was a major league hitter or a top-notch hitter in the KBO league. He knew very well that “if the last player loses in a battle of nerves, it has a big impact on the atmosphere on the bench.”
Kim Won-joong was included in the national team roster (30 players) announced on the 4th by Lee Kang-cheol, the World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team coach, and Cho Beom-hyeon, the technical director of the WBC national team. Immediately after the list was announced, he contacted Sports Donga and said, “It is the same at WBC. I’m just a person who goes out to catch anyone standing in the at-bat,” he said. I won’t make it complicated. My job at the WBC is to catch anyone.”
It is the first Taegeuk mark in my life. In the meantime, he has received attention as a candidate for the national team, but his condition was not perfect during international competitions such as the 2017 Asian Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) and the 2019 Premier 12. On the night of the 4th, more congratulatory phone calls and text messages poured in. Kim Won-joong said, “I came to represent the country,” and “It seems like the first time, even when I was an amateur. It’s such a great honor for me. I remember senior Lee Jong-beom’s come-from-behind final stroke in the 2006 WBC Korea-Japan match I saw when I was young. I also felt the weight of one ball as a national representative in the national competition. It will be an opportunity to learn a lot.” 메이저사이트
Coach Lee paid attention to pitchers who are good at inducing ground balls with pitches such as forkballs and splitters. Kim Won-joong fits perfectly. Pokeball, which he learned from Song Seung-jun in 2017, is now one of the pitches that symbolize Kim Won-joong. Last year, the ground ball/floating ball ratio was also high at 1.39. It was different from the past, when the proportion of floating balls was high. Kim Won-joong said, “Thanks to the fact that they know that I throw a lot of forkballs, I can be in a good place.” “Last year, I paid more attention to my forkball use. It seems that there were many cases where the outcount was raised with a ground ball, perhaps because of the adjustment of the type of pitch or the rate of execution.”
Eyes are directed to the WBC. Kim Won-joong said, “During the off-season, I was constantly building my body. He is improving his condition so that he can go to the tournament in the best condition,” he said. The batter who will compete with me is also a baseball player, and I am the same baseball player. It’s just that the nationalities are different, after all, aren’t they standing on the same stage on the same day? I feel like I can hit it the same way,” he said with strength.