By Yi Whan-woo
Orix Buffaloes' Korean starter Park Chan-ho was relegated to the second division after Wednesday's disappointing outing in his Japanese league debut season, the club announced Thursday.
The former Major Leaguer follows compatriot slugger Lee Seung-yeop, who preceded Park, Monday, because of a poor performance.
Park allowed four runs in six innings against the Softbank Hawks in Fukuoka, including a two-run homer.
The 37-year-old also saw the Hawks take a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the six, after the Buffaloes had a 3-1 lead in the top of the inning. Park allowed a triple to infielder Yuichi Honda, the first batter of the inning. Nobuhiro Matsuda, the following batter, then hit a double to drive Honda home. The Korean managed to draw two outs, but let outfielder Hitoshi Tamura blast a two-run dinger. Buffaloes manager Akinobu Okada replaced Park with Makoto Yoshino for the seventh.
Okada heaped criticism on Park and catcher Fumihiro Suzuki after the game.
The right-hander has marked his fourth loss with this game, to add to a 1-4 record with 4.13 ERA in 32.2 innings.
Park drew attention when he joined the club with Lee this year, as he has the most wins among Asian Major Leaguers at 124. Also the Korean duo was well recognized from their years playing in Korea.
Lee, a seventh-year Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) player, moved from the Yomiuri Giants this season with high expectation as seen from his NPB career-high mark in 2006, which featured a .323 hitting average with 108 RBIs and 41 homers in 524 at-bats.
He was relegated to the second division as is struggling with a .145 batting average and five RBIs in 62 at-bats, while recording just one home run.