152km ‘Bang’ without being scared at Tokyo Dome…The 48-hold winning team’s challenge to type, why can’t I be disappointed

Choi Joon-yong (22), a key member of the must-win team for the Lotte Giants, is trying to turn into a batter from this year’s closing camp. Although he has not let go of the pitcher’s string yet, he is considering turning the batter seriously enough to think of a complete turnaround.

After joining the team as the first designation in 2020, he is Young-gun, the representative of the league who throws a fastball with strong rotational power on a 150km fastball. It also achieved 20 holds in 2021. His overall performance was 9-11 with 15 saves, 48 holds, and a 3.50 ERA in 190 games. Although he suffered from injuries this year, he left a record of 2 wins, 3 losses, and 14 holds with a 2.47 ERA in 47 games. He was building a successful career as a must-win pitcher.

Therefore, the news of Choi Joon-yong’s turn into a batter was inevitable. He said, “My arm has been hurting since I was 20 years old four years ago. The pain was not severe, but it was often painful. So I’ve been thinking about it a lot since a long time ago. Then, in early May, he told the club about turning into a batter or working concurrently. But the general manager has changed. So it just seemed to be a situation that just went by,” he explained.

New coach Kim Tae-hyung also understood what Choi Jun-yong was thinking and what kind of situation he was in. He said, “The director called me and I heard him saying, ‘I’m going to be a beast’. He said, ‘What’s the reason?’ and I kept thinking about it because I was sick. I told the club in May of this year,’ he told me about his situation. So the director also said, ‘Let’s give it a try,’ so I’m training right now.” Head coach Kim Tae-hyung admitted Choi Jun-yong’s challenge to turn into a batter, saying, “You have to give it a try and feel it yourself.” 카지노사이트 순위

Choi Jun-yong said, “I’m often sick and rehabilitated, so I get tired mentally. Originally, I thought that if I was sick, I should work harder and do well, but I rehabilitated once or twice a year and rehabilitated three times this year alone. I think the injury is the biggest. “I want to be a pitcher so much, but I want to play a fun baseball so that I don’t get sick because I play my favorite baseball while I’m sick,” he said, noting that he tried to be a batter after a lot of consideration.

It is a serious challenge that cannot be dismissed as a joke and has talent. Until he was in middle school, he played as an infielder and showed off his batting skills. Lee Ju-hyung (Kium), a fellow high school student in Gyeongnam High School, testified even though Choi Joon-yong’s power was considerable in high school. Since he has excellent athletic ability, expectations have also been raised for the conversion of batters and the adaptation of fielders.

However, it was impossible to overlook the international competition that was just around the corner. Choi Joon-yong was selected as the national team of the Asian Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) and had to take the mound at the Tokyo Dome. And in this competition, Choi Joon-yong showed himself why the challenge of turning the batter is inevitably regrettable.

Choi Joon-yong threw a fastball without being intimidated by the mound at Tokyo Dome, the heart of Japanese baseball, on the international stage for the first time with the Taegeuk mark that everyone can be nervous about. Choi Joon-yong pitched in two games in the tournament, pitching three hits, one walk, two strikeouts and no runs in two ⅓ innings.

He took the mound in the bottom of the eighth inning, trailing 0-2 in the preliminary match against Japan on the 17th, allowing two hits, two strikeouts and no runs in one inning. He took a day off and took the mound again in the final against Japan on the 19th. He pitched in the bottom of the seventh inning against 2-2 and left one hit and one walk in one ⅓.

In the seventh inning, he sent leadoff batter Kyota Fujiwara to a fly ball to left field and hit a 151-km fastball against Kaito Kozano, leading him to a grounder to shortstop. And against Shota Morishita, the center hitter who is the main character of the most RBIs among Japanese series rookies this year, he threw a powerful fastball of 152km, his highest speed in the tournament, and led him to a ground ball to second base.

It was Choi Jun-yong, who came up in the eighth inning to play multiple innings, but after inducing leadoff hitter Shugo Maki to ground out to second base, he walked to Shogo Sakakura and hit a right-handed hit by Chusei Manami, creating a crisis with one out and first and second bases. He handed over the baton to Choi Ji-min, and Choi Ji-min overcame the crisis by handling both outcounts.

Although there was a crisis, Choi Joon-yong threw his trademark heavy fastball as a pitcher. South Korea lost to Japan for the second consecutive time in the APBC tournament, but reaffirmed the growth of young guns. Choi Joon-yong also announced that he is a young gun that can take responsibility for the future of the Korean mound. Above all, he proved once again that he is still an attractive and powerful pitcher under the assumption that he is not sick.

Choi Jun-yong is now expected to go through a serious interview with manager Kim Tae-hyung and the club after returning to Lotte from the APBC national team. It is expected to discuss in-depth whether the batter challenge is valid, how much his skills are and how likely he is as a batter, and whether he can fully handle the difficult and long process of turning into batter and fielder positions.