sports | baseball
input2024-11-12 18:21:27
(Sports Seoul | Taipei = Reporter Kim Dong-young) The Korean baseball team is about to play against Taiwan in the first game of the 2024 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier 12. The starting pitcher was unveiled. Go Young-pyo (33) will appear.
National team coach Ryu Joong-il attended the 2024 Premier 12 Group B official press conference held at The Howard Plaza Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan on the 12th along with captain Song Seong-moon.
The coaches and captains of the national teams of Korea, Taiwan, Cuba, and Dominica appeared at this event. Japan and Australia are missing. Both teams will play their first game in Nagoya, Japan on the 13th and then travel to Taiwan.
After finishing the press conference, coach Ryu Joong-il officially announced to reporters, “Go Young-pyo will be the starter for tomorrow’s (13th) match against Taiwan.”
I asked why it was selected. “The coaches judged that Taiwanese batters would not be good at hitting the type of ball that is thrown downward. Power analysis also gave the same results. So, I decided on Go Young-pyo,” he explained.
He continued, “We have four starting pitchers. Ko Young-pyo must play in the fifth game against Australia (18th). You have to throw it twice. “Considering this, I chose him as tomorrow’s starter,” he added.
Ko Young-pyo is an under/sidearm pitcher representing the KBO League. The 2024 season was not very good, with 18 games, 100 innings, 6 wins, 8 losses, and an ERA of 4.95 due to injuries. However, he posted 10 wins for three consecutive years from 2021 to 2023, and the last two years ranged from 182.1 innings to 174.2 innings.
In addition, he showed outstanding performance in fall baseball. In the wild card game and semi-playoffs, he appeared in four games and posted an ERA of 2.79. He is the protagonist of the first ‘wild card upset’ in KT history.
He was also selected for the national team. Following the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC), they will also step on the Premier 12 stage. As the oldest member of the national team’s pitching team, he is leading his juniors well. He even took on the important responsibility of starting the first game.
Taiwan hid their selection until the end. It is true that Lin Yumin looks promising. He appeared twice against Korea at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games. Taiwanese media also sees Lin Yu-min as a starter.
However, Taiwan national team coach Zheng Haoju did not reveal the selection. “We recently played a good game against Korea. We will have a good game this time too. “The selection will be revealed later,” he said and left. raining99@sportsseoul.com