With more games to spare, Doosan Bears coach Lee Seung-yeop warned of an all-out war. However, as the team has lost four consecutive games, it is not certain whether it will play in autumn or not.
Doosan lost 1-7 in the final regular season match against the Hanwha Eagles of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on the 3rd. With this result, Doosan finished the game against Hanwha with 6 wins and 10 losses this year, confirming its overall inferiority to each other for the first time since 9 wins and 10 losses in the 2011 season under the eight-team system.
With the loss, Doosan posted 64 wins, two draws and 64 losses in this season, 0.5 games ahead of fifth-ranked KT Wiz (62 wins, two draws and 63 losses). Fall baseball, which once seemed relaxed and comfortable with LG and Samsung, is also in jeopardy. It has become closer to Hanwha with a 3.5 game gap with third-ranked LG Twins (65 wins, two draws and 58 losses) and 2.5 games gap with sixth-ranked Hanwha (58 wins, two draws and 63 losses).
He got off to a good start. Starting pitcher Choi Won-joon allowed four scoreless innings, and the frustrated batters scored one run against Moon in the top of the fifth inning. However, that was all the more. Choi was on the verge of a sacrifice bunt following consecutive hits in the bottom of the fifth inning, and was hit by Moon Hyun-bin with three runs to left. Afterwards, Jeong took the mound, but was hit by Chae Eun-sung with a two-run shot to the left in the bottom of the sixth inning, and even Kim Kang-ryul, who took the mound in the bottom of the seventh inning, allowed Noh Si-hwan to hit a two-run triple, causing the team to suffer a crisis of one out and runners on the first and third bases. It was all the more regrettable because the result came despite Hanwha’s sudden rise as a candidate for the top five, and Lee Seung-yeop’s prediction of an all-out war.
Recently, Doosan has been agonizing over rotation composition due to a series of injuries to its starting pitchers. Choi Jun-ho, the fifth starter, sprained his ankle while defending at the first base at the match against the Kiwoom Heroes on June 3. Brandon Waddell, a foreign ace who seemed to be returning soon, has already been on business closure for more than two months due to shoulder pain while preparing for his return. Worse yet, he left for Japan on June 27 due to ligament damage in his right elbow after suffering repeated slumps even in Shirakawa Keisho, who he brought as a temporary substitute for Brandon.
However, as he played the most games among the 10 teams, he had relatively more time in his schedule, and Lee tried to take advantage of the situation. “[The remaining games] take one day off and two days off and so on,” Lee once said ahead of the match against the Lotte Giants on June 31. “I think it is time to stage an all-out war in every game.”
He also did not hesitate to use the “one-plus-one strategy” to assist the remaining starting pitchers such as Jordan Balazovic, Kwak Bin and Choi Won-jun. “Since our games are open, Kwak Bin and Balazovic will continue to operate in a normal rotation. Choi and Kim Min-kyu will not likely have a chance to start together. We now play three games a week, if there are many, four games,” Lee said. “We don’t need all five starting pitchers. We will operate in a flexible manner.” 먹튀검증
“It would be nice if the starting pitcher threw five or six innings, but now is not the time,” he said. “I think we need to focus on every inning and change the management of the pitching staff depending on the pitcher’s condition and score. The winning team may come out a little faster.”
However, Doosan’s batting average is 0.264 (ranking eighth in the league) and 0.744 (ranked eighth in the OPS), showing poor productivity since August. As Doosan had only five hits against Hanwha on the day, it was helpless.
He will face his natural enemy Samsung at a time when pitching and batting atmosphere are at their lowest. He will immediately move to Daegu on Friday to face Samsung, which is underperforming this season by posting 3 wins and 11 losses overall. While Doosan sends Choi Seung-yong with an earned run average of 7.9 in nine games, Samsung is also at a disadvantage in starting matchups, predicting Hwang Dong-jae, who is on an upward trajectory. Hwang Dong-jae has been playing in more than five innings consistently since switching to a starting pitcher with an earned run average of 2.87 in 12 games.
Since the match against Suwon KT Wiz on the 7th and Gocheok Kiwoom on the 10th, nine consecutive games in Jamsil, including three away games against LG, are waiting, but Doosan must change its atmosphere before then.