Right-handed fireballer Moon Dong-ju, 21, of the Hanwha Eagles of the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), has made a successful return to the first team. He marked his return with a fastball that topped out at 157 kilometers per hour.
Moon started the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League 2024 home game against the LG Twins at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon, South Korea, and pitched five innings of one-hit ball with one walk and four strikeouts to lead Hanwha to an 8-4 victory.
It was Moon’s second win of the season in six games, 54 days after his first start of the season on March 28 against the Munhwa SSG (5 innings, 6 hits, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts, 2 runs). He also lowered his ERA from 8.78 to 7.39.
Moon, who was sent down to the second team after giving up nine runs on 10 hits (three homers) with one walk and one strikeout in 3 1/3 innings against Doosan in Daejeon last month, took some time to regroup. It took him 23 days to get back to the first team, but with enough preparation, he was back to his old self.
After striking out the side in the first inning with a powerful fastball and power curveball combination, Moon gave up a leadoff walk to Oh Ji-hwan in the second inning, but induced Shin Min-jae to ground out to short to keep his no-hitter alive. He gave up the first hit of the game to Kim Bum-seok two batters later in the fourth inning to break up the no-hitter, but didn’t allow any more runs until the fifth inning.
The Hanwha bats jumped out to an early lead, scoring eight runs in the fifth inning, and he finished with 66 pitches in his first game back with the first team. He threw a mix of curveballs (37), changeups (22), two-seamers, and cutters (one offspeed), with a fastball that topped out at 157 kilometers per hour and averaged 153 kilometers per hour on TrackMan.
After the game, Moon said, “I felt really good today. There weren’t a lot of pitches that were out of the zone. Even in full counts, I didn’t have many pitches that 카지노 were out of the zone.” “For the first time today, I felt like I had power in my pitches. I threw well and had power, so it was good,” he said after the victory.
“I didn’t just say it, but I went back to the beginning and took a lot of training. Coach Lee Dae-jin, Park Jung-jin, Milee Young, and Jung Woo-ram in the second team cared a lot about me, so I was able to recover well in a short time. No matter how much I tried to think on my own, it would have been difficult without the help of the coaches and the manager. I was able to throw well because I was able to mentally manage myself so that I didn’t go too deep during the tough time,” he said, thanking the Futures coaching staff.
As for what didn’t go well, Moon said, “It wasn’t just one thing, but actually a lot of things. When I first went down to the second team, I was worried about which problem to start with, but the manager and coaches did a good job of catching those things. “We’re still in the process of solving the problems, but I think today’s game showed that we’re doing a good job.” “We’re still in the process of solving the problems,” he said. I think we’re going to play better in the future,” he said, confident of a solid rebound.