One of the pitchers who stood out at this year’s KBO All-Star Game was KT Wiz’s Park Young-hyun (19). He pitched a one-hit shutout, striking out six, and won the best pitcher award.온라인바카라
Fast-forward to the previous day, and another pitcher with a similar name to Young-hyun was also on the mound. This is Kim Young-hyun (20), who plays on the same team as Park.
On the 14th, Young-hyun played for the Southern All-Stars at the 2023 KBO Futures All-Star Game at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan, South Korea, and was the third pitcher in relief after starters Lee Seung-min (Commerce Baseball Team) and Hwang Dong-ha (KIA Tigers). His final score was 1⅓ innings, two strikeouts and no runs. As far as relievers go, Jang Jae-hyuk (Samsung Lions) had the most innings pitched at the Southern All-Star Game.
An inning is an inning, but it was a clean one. Facing four batters and throwing 16 pitches, Kim completed his task without allowing a hit or a walk. Although his team lost 7-9 and the Most Valuable Player award (Seo Sang-joon-SSG Landers) went to the Northern All-Star, he left a mark on the fans who watched the game and made sure they saw his name on the stone.
After joining KT with the 45th pick of the 2021 second round, Young-hyun Kim was added to the roster in time for the start of the season and was given the opportunity to pitch from the opening game against the LG Twins on 1 April. With a 6.89 ERA in 16 games and 15⅔ innings pitched for the first team this season, Young-hyun had been rebuilding his game in the second team after being removed from the first team roster on the 11th of last month.
“I’m honoured to represent the KT Futures team, and I’m the only pitcher here, so I want to do better,” Young-hyun said before the Futures All-Star Game. “Head coach Seo Yong-bin told me in advance, and I told him that I wanted to play in the All-Star Game because I think I can improve and have a good experience if I do well,” he added.
Kim Young-hyun, who also went through trial and error, said, “I made my debut this year and threw like this, so there are some things that I bumped into and some things that I lacked, but the coaches in the second team and the coaches in the training part helped me a lot, so I think I’m getting better again now,” he said.
KT coach Lee Kang-cheol’s advice was also a big help. “He gave me a lot of confidence-building words because he saw that (I) didn’t have any experience, and he said that if I went up to the mound and threw hard regardless of the result, he would give me enough chances, so I think I believed in that and threw hard,” Young-hyun reflected.
It’s been over a month since he was sent down to the second team, but he says his confidence has only grown since he was designated for assignment. His fastball has also improved. “I think it was the confidence that worked the most, and then there were some things that I lacked in terms of pitching power and game management, so when I went up from the second team while rebuilding, I think I can do better,” Kim said. “My velocity went up a lot, and I hit my highest velocity this time. My confidence has also increased a lot, and I recently reached 150km/h,” he smiled.
In the long run, the team needs a pitcher who can support the pitching staff of Park Young-hyun, Lee Sang-dong, Son Dong-hyun, and Kim Jae-yoon. In addition, there are many variables to consider, including a potentially heavy bullpen load in the second half of the season and Park’s participation in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games. The opportunity will come. It’s up to Young-hyun to prove his worth.