Will Kiwoom Heroes right-hander An Woo-jin be able to overcome the sudden crisis?
An Woo-jin will start in the home game against KT Wiz at Gocheok Sky Dome on the 11th. As of the 10th, Ahn Woo-jin came out of 16 games this season and recorded an average ERA of 2.24 with 6 wins, 4 losses, 100⅔ innings, and 119 strikeouts. He ranks 4th in earned run average in the league and 1st among domestic pitchers.메이저놀이터
He hasn’t played well in his last two appearances. An Woo-jin became the winning pitcher in the NC game on the 4th, the previous pitch, but scored 4 runs in 6 innings. In his previous appearance, against KIA on June 28, he also scored the most runs in the season with 5 runs in 5⅓ innings. An Woo-jin, who had never scored more than 3 runs in 14 games this year before playing against KIA, but gave up 9 points in the last 2 games. His earned run average also rose from 1.61 to 2.24 in two games.
It is a different step from last year when he was reborn as an ace. An Woo-jin appeared in 30 games last year and recorded 15 wins, 8 losses, 196 innings, 224 strikeouts, and an average ERA of 2.11, ranking first in the league’s ERA and strikeouts, winning the pitcher’s Golden Glove. It was his first double-digit winning season in his debut and first regulation inning entry. He also set a new record for the most strikeouts by a domestic pitcher (previous Choi Dong-won with 223 strikeouts).
Last year, Ahn Woo-jin was able to become an ace by maintaining the 1st place in ERA and 1st place in strikeouts thanks to a sense of stability that did not shake twice in a row. An Woo-jin had only 4 games out of 30 games last year that exceeded 3 earned runs, all of which were in different months. Even if he conceded a large number of runs once, he made sure to pitch a quality start in the next game.
There was only one case where the quality start failed in two consecutive games, which was an earned run in 6 innings against KIA on June 11 and a scoreless inning in 5 innings against LG on June 17. He immediately regained his ace instinct with one run in 7⅓ innings against Samsung on June 23, the next appearance. Even after the most runs last year against kt on July 28 (8 runs in 5⅔ innings), he showed perfect pitching with 7 scoreless innings against SSG on August 3.
In the last two games, An Woo-jin didn’t have a big problem. In two games, he consistently maintained an average speed of 150 km per hour, and the number of pitches continued to exceed 100, proving that there was no problem with his health. However, while dealing with hitters, a little more sophisticated consideration is needed in the ball arrangement. This is a problem to be considered with the power analysis team, coach part, and catcher.
It is probably the player himself who needs Ahn Woo-jin’s good pitching the most, but the same goes for his Kiwoom, who is mired in four consecutive losses. Kiwoom lost to Doosan in the game on the 9th and recorded 4 consecutive losses, dropping from 6th to 7th. It is now in danger of falling from the middle to the bottom. For the beauty of the first half, both the ace’s rebound and the help of the other players are needed.
