Eagles starter Weiss feeding off rotation mates in 'healthy competition'

Hanwha Eagles starter Ryan Weiss pitches against the Lotte Giants during a Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark in Daejeon, 140 kilometers south of Seoul, May 23. Yonhap

By Yonhap

• Published May 29, 2025 10:41 AM KST

When he is not pitching for the Hanwha Eagles, right-hander Ryan Weiss has the front-row seat from his dugout to some of the best starters in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) this season — his own teammates.

The Eagles have the best starting pitching ERA in the league through Wednesday at 3.41. Their starters also have the lowest opponents' on-base plus slugging with .623. The Eagles' rotation leads the KBO with 323 strikeouts and has given up the fewest walks with 85.

Cody Ponce leads the way with a 1.94 ERA, the second-best mark in the KBO, along with a perfect 8-0 record and a league-best 105 strikeouts. Ryu Hyun-jin, the 2019 Major League Baseball leader in ERA for the Los Angeles Dodgers, is 4-2 with a 3.28 ERA in his second season back with the Eagles. And Moon Dong-ju, the 21-year-old fireballer, is 5-2 with a 3.68 ERA, along with 56 Ks in 51 1/3 innings.

Weiss has been no slouch himself. He is 7-2 with a 3.50 ERA and ranks fourth overall in the KBO with 80 strikeouts in 69 1/3 innings, heading into his Thursday evening start versus the LG Twins.

"When you're sitting on the bench and one of your other pitchers is out there, you want him to go as many innings with the fewest amount of runs and see what happens," Weiss told Yonhap News Agency at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Wednesday. "Say, someone goes six scoreless, you want to be able to go seven scoreless. Or if they go seven, you want to go seven with maybe more strikeouts. It's a very healthy competition."

Weiss said enjoying the company of his teammates away from the field helps the rotation at the stadium, too.

"I care about the guys, care about how we do, and I feel like we have relationships off the field," he said. "It's been a lot of fun and winning kind of helps everything."

The Eagles have done plenty of winning this year, having put together winning streaks of eight games and then 12 games. After beating the KBO-leading Twins 6-5 in 11 innings Wednesday, the Eagles are in second place with a record of 32-22-0 (wins-losses-ties). They trail the Twins (34-19-1) by 2 1/2 games.

"I like that we're winning right now, and overall, the pitching is doing a pretty good job keeping us in ball games," he said. "Really good teams have good pitching. So hopefully, we can continue that for the rest of the year."

Weiss is trying to send the Eagles to the postseason for the first time since 2018. The Eagles couldn't quite end that drought last year, despite a promising start to the season and strong efforts by Weiss as a midseason arrival.

Weiss initially signed a six-week contract at $100,000 in June as a temporary replacement for the injured pitcher Ricardo Sanchez. The Eagles liked Weiss so much that they decided to sign him to a full contract worth $260,000 in July and cut Sanchez.

Weiss finished the 2024 season with a 5-5 record and a 3.73 ERA 16 starts, and that earned him a new contract worth up to $950,000, including incentives, in November.

Asked about any adjustment he'd made coming into his first full KBO season, Weiss said he is "trying to get more comfortable with my changeup."

According to the baseball website Statiz, Weiss has increased his changeup usage from 3.3 percent last year to 4.3 percent this year.

"I know I haven't thrown it a ton so far but it's gotten better than it was last year," he said. "I know that that's going to be a pitch that I definitely do use down the stretch."

Weiss had been pitching independent ball last year before joining the Eagles and logged a combined 137 1/3 innings in 2024. He is already at 69 1/3 innings this year prior to his start Wednesday night, with the season not even at the halfway point yet.

On top of polishing up his repertoire, Weiss is trying to get his body ready for the long grind.

"I'm really trying to make sure that my body's ready to throw a lot of innings and just try to win every time I go out there," he said. "I know we're in a good place right now but I just want to keep riding that momentum and try to be as consistent as possible for the whole season."