Lotte Giants manager Larry Sutton smiled broadly at the news of the team’s key pitchers’ strong fighting as soon as they stepped on Korean soil.

The Lotte team led by Sutton returned to Korea through Incheon International Airport Terminal 1 on the afternoon of the 7th. After starting the spring camp in Guam on the 1st, the stage was moved to Okinawa, Japan from the middle, and the players’ skills were raised to the next level through strong training and practice games.스포츠토토

Coach Sutton expressed his satisfaction in the overall evaluation of the spring camp, saying, “I think it was a great success. I prepared a lot to improve the details, and my concentration to put it into practice showed performance.”

There was another thing that pleased Sutton. It was a perfect pitch between pitchers Park Se-woong and Kim Won-joong, who are currently contributing to the restoration of the honor of Korean baseball in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team. 

In Lotte’s 2023 WBC, Park Se-woong and Kim Won-joong were named in the final entry. It is regrettable that the native ace and closer cannot be together from the middle of spring camp until the end of this month, but Sutton hopes that the two will enhance the status of Lotte and the KBO league.

As if the commanding tower’s heart had been conveyed, Park Se-woong and Kim Won-joong showed outstanding pitching side by side in a practice match between the Korean national baseball team and the Hanshin Tigers at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan that afternoon.

Kim Won-joong’s pitching also shone. In the bottom of the 8th inning, when the national team was leading 7-3, Kim Won-joong got on the mound with no bases loaded and caught the first batter with a double hit by the shortstop, exchanging two out counts and scores. Then, he turned the follow-up hitter into a looking strikeout and prevented an additional run, showing the greatness of Lotte’s finish.

With the strong pitching of Park Se-woong and Kim Won-joong as a stepping stone, Korea defeated Hanshin and was able to comfortably prepare for the first leg of the first round of the 2023 WBC finals against Australia on the 9th.

Director Sutton said, “Director Sutton said, “I am very excited about Park Se-woong’s performance in the WBC. Reporters just told me that Park Se-woong pitched well, but I’m not really surprised,” he said. “Park Se-woong always prepares well and trains diligently. Even in the spring camp before joining the national team, the build-up was very well done,” he emphasized.

“Kim Won-joong seems to have done well as usual. Kim Won-joong also has high expectations for how active he will be in the national team,” he said, hoping that the two pillars of the Lotte Mound would represent Korea with great pitching.