LG Twins’ foreign starter Casey Kelly (34) revealed the future prospects by adding multipliers with the appearance of completely shaking off the sluggishness at the beginning of the season.
Kelly fought well with 6 hits, 1 home run, 4 strikeouts and 1 run in 7 innings against the Hanwha Eagles in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League held at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on the 19th.
Kelly, who withdrew at the end of the 7th inning with a 3-1 lead, had his 4th win (2nd loss) of the season as the relief team kept a 2-point lead.
On May 7, against the Doosan Bears (7 innings, 1 run) and against the Samsung Lions (7 innings, 3 runs), 3 consecutive games with a quality start plus (QS+, 7 or more starting innings, 3 earned or less) and 3 starts were sluggish. appeared to be completely out of line.
Kelly, who wore an LG uniform from the 2019 season, established himself as a filial foreign pitcher by winning double-digit multipliers for four consecutive seasons until last season.
In particular, last season, he won 16 wins (4 losses), the most in his career, and became the king of most wins.
However, the beginning of this year was markedly different from previous seasons. In the first 6 games, they only won 1 win (2 losses). The problem was that the ball, which had been stable, was shaking and the number of walks increased.
Kelly gave up only 35 walks in 166⅓ innings last season, but allowed 11 walks in 22⅔ innings in 4 games, which were sluggish, and the number of runs increased as well.
He played at least 5 innings in each game and showed his appearance as an inning eater, but his ERA, which was 2.54 last season, soared to the 5-point range.
However, in May, it gradually regained its former appearance. Although the pitch was not as powerful as before, it was thanks to the pitching that matched while recovering control.
On the 7th, against Doosan, he got 8 hits in 7 innings, but won by 1 run with no 4 balls. On the 14th, against Samsung, he recorded 7 hits in 7 innings, but only walked, and won 3 runs.
It was a similar pattern to the previous games. He faced 28 batters in 7 innings and struck out only 4, but he fought the batters with aggressive pitches that continued to enter the strike zone.
In the 4th inning, the bases were loaded with 2 outs, but Park Sang-eon struck out with 3 pitches and roared.
In the 5th inning, Jung Eun-won hit a double after one out, but he overcame it by blocking a fly ball from the outfield in a head-to-head match with Roh Si-hwan, who is currently the best hitter in Hanwha.
Then, he did not back down from Chae Eun-seong, who allowed a home run in the first inning, and struck out and escaped the crisis again. 메이저사이트
With Adam Plutko, another foreign pitcher in the team, tied for first place in most wins with 6 wins, LG was able to digest the rest of the season with a powerful one-two punch as Kelly also fought hard day after day.
After the game, coach Yeom Gyeong-yeop praised, “Kelly played a good game with ace-down pitching. Today the bullpen was in a difficult situation, but he helped manage the game by pulling long innings.”
Kelly said, “I thought I would pitch aggressively from the beginning.
Regarding his impressions of Chae Eun-seong, who ate rice in one pot until last year, he said, “I felt strange because I was a player who lived in the same team for a long time.” laughed