Park, Baek end Dark Ages for local aces

Lotte Giants ace pitcher Park Se-woong pitches in a game against the LG Twins at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium, Aug. 2. / Yonhap

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The March 31 opening day of the 2017 regular season signaled that the domination by foreign-born pitchers of the Korea Baseball Organization League would continue this year.

All starting pitchers of the 10 KBO clubs were foreign-born, showing their heavy reliance on imported baseball talent to win the symbolic games.

With each baseball club having roughly 40 games left out of 144, there have been minor earthquakes on the pitchers’ mounds around the league. Some local pitchers defied early predictions and outperformed their teams’ foreign-born pitchers.

Among others, Lotte Giants ace pitcher Park Se-woong and Samsung Lions starter Baek Jung-hyun raised hopes for the future of local pitchers amid the foreign-born pitchers’ domination of the KBO League.

Although Park, 22, and Baek, 30, have little in common in their pitching styles and experience, the two are in their most prolific years in the league.

Park, who joined the KBO league in 2014 as a starter for the KT Wiz and was traded to the Giants in 2016, has transformed into his team’s undisputed ace pitcher. He has led the KBO League in ERA with 2.89 and one of two KBO pitchers whose ERA is in the 2.0 range. The other is KT Wiz pitcher Ryan Feierabend.

For Lotte Giants fans, Park is reminiscent of the late Busan-born baseball legend Choi Dong-won (1958-2011) who dominated the KBO League in the 1980s.

Like Choi, Park is a righty who wears glasses. Their pitching and even speaking styles are similar and both are well-known for their ceaseless efforts to improve their performances.

Some baseball analysts say Park is one of the strongest candidates to win the 2017 Choi Dong-won Award which is given to the best Korean-born pitcher of the season. Since it was introduced in 2014 to encourage local pitchers to perform better, Kia Tigers Yang Hyeon-jong and two Doosan Bears pitchers -- Yu Hee-kwan and Jang Won-jun -- were honored with the recognition.

Once the regular season ends, seven senior baseball experts will meet to select the Korean pitcher of the year. KBO pitchers who meet certain conditions are to be reviewed. Candidates must be pitchers who achieve a 3.0 or less ERA, appear in 30 games or more, win at least 12 games, pitch 180 innings or more, strike out 180 batters or more and have 15 games of quality starts.

Park has an advantage because he is the leader in the ERA rankings. He has so far won nine games and lost three. He could achieve a double-digit win, given the number of games left for the Giants during the remainder of the season.

His hard work and consistent performances earned him various nicknames. One of them is “child breadwinner.” The Giants went through a devastating losing streak in June caused by what baseball experts called a meltdown of its starters. Park was the lone starter who demonstrated solid pitching during that time. He is younger than his team’s other starters and his contributions to the Giants during those dark days earned him his nickname.

His team has since been rebounding. But Park is wrestling with his own demons -- his winning record came to a halt on June 22 after his ninth win in a game against the Doosan Bears. He has since pitched six games and three of them were quality starts -- allowing only three RBIs or less in six innings. Despite this, he failed to add one more win for a double-digit win in the league.

On the Lions’ roster, reliever-turned-starter Baek Jung-hyun is a rising star.

Among baseball analysts, Lions starter Baek is called “Baek-Shaw,” a combination of his last name and Los Angeles Dodgers ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw. He earned the nickname during the 2014 spring camp in Okinawa, Japan. He demonstrated superb pitching all during the games against the Japanese baseball clubs and this led some baseball experts to comment that Baek’s pitching was as great as that of Kershaw.

But his pitching was not built to last. He struggled in the following regular season and baseball experts began to call him “Baek-Shaw in Okinawa.”

This season no one calls him that. He is back to Baek-Shaw as he improved his ball control and struck out sluggers on opposing teams.

A 10-year KBO leaguer, Baek had served as a relief pitcher for many years and became a starting pitcher late last season. The leadership change in the club last year after the regular season, however, affected his position as a pitcher. After manager Kim Han-soo took the helm, Baek became a reliever again early this season.

Some Lions starters were injured and some were sent to the minor Futures League after disappointing performances. The crisis facing the Lions gave Baek a window of opportunity as a starter. Baek was called upon as a starting pitcher again and achieved his thrilling first win in a game against the Nexen Heroes on May 12. He has since shown solid pitching. Baek won seven games and lost three and became one of the top two starting pitchers for the Lions. He is a natural enemy of the Dinos. Four out of his seven wins came in the games against the NC Dinos, the runner-up in the league’s win-loss column.