‘Ace wearing glasses’ Park Se-woong came back to life. The shield of the Lotte Giants, who regained first place, has become stronger.
Park Se-woong started as a starting pitcher in the home game against SSG Landers in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League held at Sajik Stadium in Busan on the 19th and pitched well with 6 hits, 6 strikeouts and 1 run in 6 innings. Park Se-woong, who played 6 innings for the first time this season, recorded his first quality start and first win at the same time. Lotte won 7-5 against SSG with Park Se-woong’s good fight and regained the top spot.
Until this day, Park Se-woong was not living up to expectations with an average ERA of 4.66 with 1 loss in 6 games. At the World Baseball Classic (WBC) held in March, Park Se-woong performed the best among the national team’s pitchers, raising expectations for the season. However, as the season began, he struggled with pitching and often found it difficult to last through the 5th inning.
Lotte showed off a good start to the season by finishing April in first place, but there was an element of anxiety. It was just the starting lineup. In April, the Lotte starting lineup was the only one among 10 clubs with an average ERA of 5 points (5.03), remaining at the bottom of the league. Only the April MVP Na Gyun-an struggled, but foreign duos Dan Strayley, Charlie Barnes, Park Se-woong, and Han Hyun-hee also showed a collective hunt.
However, in May, the starting rotation began to operate normally as if it had been promised. Strayley recorded quality starts in both games in May, recording an average ERA of 1.46 with 1 win and 1 loss. Barnes, who regained his form as a left-handed lion, recorded only one earned run in two games and 13⅔ innings (1 win, 0.66 ERA).
Han Hyeon-hee, a free agent transfer student, did not give up a single point in 2 games in May and reaped 2 wins. April MVP Na Gyun-an lost 5 runs in 4 innings against KIA on the 3rd and 4 runs in 5 innings against Doosan on the 11th. The only remaining puzzle in the starting lineup was Park Se-woong.
Park Se-woong showed signs of resurgence with 메이저사이트 5 innings and 1 run against KT Wiz on the 12th, his last appearance, and on the 19th he announced a revival with the best pitching of the season in an important game against SSG for the first place. The average ERA of the Lotte starting lineup, which even rebounded to Park Se-woong, was 2.35, the only one in the league to record a 2-point range (Samsung 3.13 in second place). The bullpen, which led the team’s upward trend, has slowed somewhat with an ERA of 4.79 (7th place) in May, but Pil Seung-jo, who leads Kim Sang-soo, Koo Seung-min, and Kim Won-joong, is still solid.
Lotte is competing fiercely at the top of the leaderboard at the beginning of the season with more solid power, sticky performance, and amazing momentum than ever before. Attention is focusing on how long Lotte, which has built a complete starting lineup with the resurrection of the last puzzle Park Se-woong, will continue its momentum.