On May 11th, ahead of the Gwangju KIA match, SSG coach Kim Won-hyung spared a definite answer to the question about the perfume selection rotation, saying, “There is a player to interview.” It was a very cautious tone. He was reluctant to reveal the name of the player at first, but eventually revealed the name of Moon Seung-won (34‧SSG).안전놀이터
SSG’s starting rotation is working relatively well despite the absence of foreign player Annie Romero at the beginning of this season. Local ace Kim Kwang-hyun and foreign ace Kirk McCarty served as a pillar. In addition, Moon Seung-won, Park Jong-hoon, and Oh Won-seok filled the positions, and with the addition of Song Young-jin, a rookie high school graduate, the six-member starting lineup was able to return without a single foreigner. Players had time to rest while taking turns.
However, Roennis Elias, a foreign pitcher to replace Romero, signed a contract on May 4, and was scheduled to join the roster in mid-May. Even excluding Song Young-jin, who still lacks experience, having six players in the starting rotation could be a waste at some point. Besides, the SSG bullpen wasn’t doing so well before the season, and certain players were under load at the beginning of the season. It was a very natural procedure to take someone out and send them to the bullpen.
Coach Kim had Moon Seung-won in mind, who was down in the 2nd division for a break at the time. He didn’t think he was behind in terms of skills and grades. When considering various factors such as style and experience in the bullpen, Seung-Won Moon was the player he thought would “be able to do the best” in the bullpen. However, he was about to respect the player’s opinion. If Moon Seung-won said he would remain as a starter, he planned to have him pitch as a starter in the 2nd team and find a sense of it. He was a necessary player at some point anyway.
In this careful interview, Moon Seung-won readily accepted the bullpen move. He believed that to be useful to the team anyway, he had to be in the first team, and once he was in the first team, his position didn’t matter much. It was natural to have regrets about the selection, but now was not the time to cover it up. So on May 13, Moon Seung-won returned to the first team as a ‘bullpen pitcher’.
The starting lineup and the bullpen are obviously different. There is a difference from preparing for the match itself. The way he plays the game is also different. Even if the selection is given 1 or 2 points, it is enough to lead the next one. However, there are many situations in which the bullpen ends the game after giving 1 or 2 points. I had to change my mindset and patterns. Although he had experience playing in the bullpen after returning from elbow surgery last year, Moon Seung-won was basically a player who was developed as a starter from the time of his debut and played as a starter again. That’s why he struggled in the beginning.
However, as soon as he started to get a feel for it, he was doing the dirty work in the bullpen and doing well. Moon Seung-won has been performing impressively since June. He threw 8 innings in 5 games from Incheon Samsung on June 1st to Gwangju KIA on June 8th, recording 1 win, 1 save, 2 holds, and an average ERA of 0. He seems to be stable without even knowing the content of the game. During these 8 innings, his batting average is only 0.074, and his OPS (on-base percentage + avoiding slugging percentage) is excellent at 0.249.
He is literally the SSG bullpen’s Anycall. He basically goes out regardless of the winning group in situations where he is ahead, situations where he is slightly behind, and situations where multiple innings are needed in close matches. In the game against KIA in Gwangju on the 8th, when closer Jin-Yong Seo and Kyung-Eun Noh, who came next in line to finish, both took a rest day, they climbed the mound in the ninth inning with a 1-point lead, 5-4, and closed the game. He had a walk and an unfortunate infield hit, but he blocked the follow-up well and earned his first save of the season.
It is a painting in which the savior appeared in an astounding moment. Noh Kyung-eun, the winning setup man, has already pitched 30 innings this year. He manages his streak well, but is one of the bullpen pitchers with the most innings pitched in the league. Choi Min-joon, who is also capable of multi-inning, played 28⅓ innings, and Ko Hyo-jun played 26 games, which is not a small number. Since there are many winning games, the number of games and innings played by finisher Seo Jin-yong is not small. Now is the time to gradually get tired.
In this situation, the existence of Moon Seung-won, who can play left and right batters when he is good, has a lot of experience in high leverage situations, and can even digest multi-innings, is inevitably a rain of drought. This is because Seo Jin-yong and No-Kyung Moon Seung-won joined Goh Hyo-joon and Choi Min-joon’s Pil Seung-won, and conditions were created for them to be rotated as long as the starting pitcher blocks 6 innings.
When looking at the peak of his pitching, Roh-gyeong has nothing worse than Choi Min-jun in Moon Seung-won. In the end, the bullpen operation in the game on the 8th, which erased many names, was able to come up with the idea because Moon Seung-won was at the center. A player who changed his mind by saying, “Even a bullpen pitcher can do it,” is providing space for the team’s overall season plan.