Hanwha Eagles native ace Moon Dong-ju will end the regular season with a three-day start.
This comes after he reached his career-high of 120 innings pitched to prevent injury.
Up until this point, Moon had pitched 114⅓ innings in 22 games with an 8-8 record and a 3.62 ERA.
After tonight’s game against the LG Twins at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, the team will travel to Seosan Stadium for about three weeks to prepare for the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Moon is seen as a resource to protect the starting mound for a national team whose offense has been weakened by the injury departure of Lee Jung-hoo (Kiwoom Heroes).
“His pitch count could be around 100 pitches,” Hanwha coach Choi Won-ho told reporters, adding, “We will be flexible depending on the pitch and the game.”
“There’s no reason to keep him until the last 100 pitches, and there’s no reason to take him out early if he’s pitching well,” he explained.
The second-year fireballer’s longest inning in a game was eight innings against the NC Dinos in June.
In that game, Moon shut down the NC bats for two hits and no runs while striking out seven with a fastball that topped out at 158 kilometers per hour. He didn’t walk a single batter and was efficient with 90 pitches.
With plenty of time to rest after the game, it will be interesting to see if Moon can follow up his stellar performance with a complete game shutout.
“He’s not just throwing blindly hard (as before), but he’s controlling his strength and weakness and his delivery has improved a lot,” Choi said of Moon. 파워볼사이트