‘Glasses ace’ Park Se-woong (27, Lotte Giants) climbs the mound for the Czech match with the burden and responsibility to win.
Park Se-woong will start the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC) Group B Czech match held at Tokyo Dome, Japan on the 12th.
South Korea, which suffered two consecutive losses to Australia (7-8) and Japan (4-13), must win against the Czech Republic in order to keep its hopes of advancing to the quarterfinals. After winning the game against China on the 13th, when the first round was eliminated, we have to watch the results of other teams. The scenario Korea wants the most is for Japan to beat Australia on the evening of the 12th, and the Czech Republic to beat Australia on the 13th.
A good pitch from the starting pitcher is desperately needed to easily solve the game against the Czech Republic, which is one step below us.
Park Se-woong boasts a good condition. On the 7th, he started in the evaluation match against the Hanshin Tigers and showed a perfect pitch with no hits and no runs in 2 innings.
In the game against Japan on the 10th, the Korean national team kept the minimum pride. Park Se-woong took the mound as the 10th pitcher of the national team with two outs and bases loaded at the end of the 7th inning, trailing 4-13. If he loses a run in the mound at the end of the 7th inning, he is in danger of losing a cold game. Park Se-woong finished the 7th inning by treating Kazuma Okamoto as a floating ball in left field. Then, in the bottom of the 8th inning, he kept the mound and made a three-way withdrawal against Shugo Maki, Takumu Nakano, and Takumi Oshiro.
Among the Korean pitchers who appeared on the mound that day, the content was the best. Perfect in 1 1/3 innings. Contrary to the previous young pitchers who threw 4 pitches, the confident game stood out. Park Se-woong said after the game, “It seems that my efforts to throw strikes worked a little.”
Park Se-woong is in good shape with 2 runs and an average ERA of 2.25, throwing 8 innings in a total of 6 games at international competitions such as the 2017 APBC Championship and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. 안전놀이터
For this tournament, Park Se-woong did not accompany his team, Lotte, to Guam’s field training, but remained in Korea and trained in his own way. In a situation where he had to quickly improve his condition for the March tournament, he wanted to spend more time preparing for the WBC by saving travel time between Seoul and Guam. To that extent, he is serious about the Taegeuk mark. Park Se-woong started pitching in the bullpen right away on February 1st. He said, “I thought for a long time about not participating in the camp (first team for two weeks). They believed that ‘if you can take responsibility, you can do it’, so I prepared with a sense of responsibility.”
Previously, the results against Australia and Japan were very disappointing. In the game against the Czech Republic on the 12th, not only the result but also the contents are important. Park Se-woong climbs the starting mound with the greatest responsibility and burden.