Director Kim Tae-hyung Recognized as ‘Ace’… Park Se-woong Responded with “Responsibility”
“You trusted me, so I will repay you with responsibility.”
If there is one position that is most certain for the professional baseball Lotte Giants,
who have appointed coach Kim Tae-hyung (55) and are preparing for a leap forward next season, it is the starting lineup.
The two foreign pitchers, Charlie Barnes and Aaron Wilkerson,
are planning to renew their contracts, and the domestic starting lineup only needs to find a fifth starter with Park Se-woong and Na Kyun-an as the central players. 파워볼게임
Coach Kim Tae-hyung
Among these, the ‘ace’ recognized by Director Kim is Park Se-woong.
Coach Kim, who took office as Lotte coach on the 24th, began finishing training and said of Park Se-woong,
“You should definitely have pride in being an ace,” and added,
“Since the military issue has been resolved, he will show better skills than now.” showed.
Although Park Se-woong failed to achieve double-digit wins with 9 wins and 7 losses this season,
he showed solid performance with an ERA of 3.45 in 154 innings in 27 games.
Although he showed ups and downs until the middle of the season,
he showed an upward trend by successfully making quality starts (within 3 earned runs in 6 or more innings as a starter) in 7 of the last 8 games and earning 5 wins.
Ahead of the opening, he participated in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) and guarded the mound for the national team, and also participated in the Hangzhou Asian Games,
winning a gold medal and receiving military service benefits.
Regarding the head coach’s trust, Park Se-woong said, “You said that, so I have to repay you.
“I will prepare well with a sense of responsibility so that I can build trust,” he said.
Asian Games
Park Se-woong, who would have had to enlist immediately if he did not win a gold medal at the Asian Games, can now focus only on baseball.
He said, “There is a new coach for the team.
He came here, and I will prepare accordingly and become a player who can take responsibility for the game,” he said, emphasizing ‘responsibility’ again.
The word that symbolizes the new Lotte that Coach Kim envisions is ‘aggressive baseball.’
Whether it is hitting or pitching, the goal is to push the opponent aggressively and take the lead.
Park Se-woong said, “The manager said we will play aggressive baseball,
so if the pitchers block as much as possible, (the batters) will score a lot of points so we can win the game.”
This year, Park Se-woong has completed the required number of innings (144 innings) for four consecutive years and has even been to international competitions twice.
Park Se-woong
He said, “This year, since we played early in the WBC, I think we need to pay more attention to recovery.”
He added, “The coach was considerate of players who threw a lot of games to prepare themselves until camp (without finishing training).
As much as he gave us faith, “It has to be done well,” he said.
Next month, the last international competition of the year,
the Asian Professional Baseball Championship (WBC), will be held.
Park Se-woong participated in the first competition in 2017,
wearing his first Taegeuk symbol, and has now leapt to become a leading player in the league.
Three players from Lotte will participate: Choi Jun-yong (pitcher), Son Seong-bin (catcher), and Yoon Dong-hee (outfielder).
Park Se-woong, who was not selected this time because it is a competition with an age limit (under 24 years old),
hoped that “our juniors will do well and this will be a competition that will produce key players who will play in next year’s Premier 12.”