“I don’t know why they are doing so well all of a sudden. Maybe it’s because they came with the coach’s energy from Pohang.”체스카지노
These are the words of Eui-ji Yang, the hostess of the Doosan Bears. The person who led the victory in the 8th match in July seems to have no idea why. Doosan won 8 consecutive wins from Ulsan Lotte Giants on the 1st to Jamsil Kiwoom Heroes on the 9th. Doosan, which stayed in 6th place until June, has increased its win-loss margin to +5 with a season record of 41 wins, 36 losses and 1 draw, solidifying its sole third place.
The 8 consecutive wins is a new record for the most consecutive wins under manager Lee Seung-yeop. The last Doosan 8-game winning streak was from Gocheok Nexen (currently Kiwoom) on June 6, 2018 to Daejeon Hanwha on June 14 of that year, an 8-game winning streak in 1851 days. During the above period, Doosan won 10 consecutive wins until the match against Hanwha in Daejeon on June 16th. The 10-game winning streak is the club’s all-time record.
The flow of shots in Pohang, which Lee made as the ‘promised land’ during his days with the Samsung Lions, continues to this day. Pohang is the stadium where coach Lee achieved 400 homers for the first time in the KBO, and Doosan laid the foundation for an eight-game winning streak by catching all three weekday matches against Samsung in Pohang from the 4th to the 6th. The reverse victory in both the first and second games of the series was a great boost to the upward trend. Coach Lee says that he doesn’t need to attach much importance to Pohang anymore because he is no longer a player, but Pohang gave the victory to coach Lee Seung-yeop anyway. This is the background that Yang Eui-ji said, “I received the energy of Pohang.”
This rising trend is poised to wake up even Miracle Doosan, which won the 2019 Great Battle. At the end of the season, Doosan fiercely pursued SK Wyverns (now SSG Landers), which was ahead by 9 games that year, and finally wrote a miracle. On October 1st, the 144th game, they won 6-5 against NC Dinos in Jamsil, matching SK with 88 wins, 55 losses and 1 draw. At the time, according to the KBO regulations, Doosan was ranked first with an opponent’s overall advantage, and Doosan was ahead of SK with 9 wins and 7 losses, so it rose to first place without a game difference for the first time in KBO history. Following that spirit, Kiwoom won all four matches in the Korean Series, winning the club’s sixth and final combined championship.
Doosan currently has a 5 game gap with second place SSG (46 wins, 31 losses, 1 draw), and a 7.5 game gap with first place LG Twins (49 wins, 29 losses, 2 draws). It is true that it is not an easy distance to narrow enough to say that it has already been solidified into a two-team system. However, Doosan has 66 games left in the current season. Looking back at the time when the 9 game car was overturned in 2019, the game car and the number of remaining games are more challenging this year. Coincidentally, SSG was the opponent for the last three matches in the first half from the 11th to the 13th. Depending on the results of this series, the distance to the 2nd place could definitely be narrowed or widened.
Of course, the composition of the team and coaches, including the head coach, is very different now. Compared to 2019, it is true that there are many young and variable players. Still, Kim Jae-ho, Yang Eui-ji, Kim Jae-hwan, Heo Gyeong-min, Su-bin Jeong, Kim Kang-ryul, Lee Young-ha, Park Chi-guk, and Kim Myung-shin, who led the Korean series for seven consecutive years from 2015 to 2021 and experienced Miracle Doosan directly, are still holding on.
Yang Eui-ji, who returned after signing a 4+2 year 15.2 billion free agent contract with her parents Doosan this year, said, “It is my mission to make it a strong team again.” It is becoming.
Yang Eui-ji said, “I think the atmosphere is a little brighter because I won. I think I can finish the first half well by winning before the All-Star break, and I think I can start the second half comfortably.” In the current rankings, he revealed a slightly humble goal, saying, “I can add even more, and at the end, I can only finish in 5th place.”
Doosan’s pitching balance in July is the best ever. The team’s ERA is 1.85, overwhelmingly in first place. The starting lineup, including Raul Alcantara, Brandon Waddell, Kwak Bin, Choi Won-joon, and Kim Dong-ju, is running solidly, and the bullpen never gives points. The bullpen ERA for July reached 0.90. Kim Myung-shin was responsible for 8 scoreless innings in 6 games and took 1 win and 4 holds, and Hong Kun-hee, Jeong Cheol-won, Lee Young-ha, Park Chi-guk, Choi Seung-yong and Kim Kang-ryul, no one has a hole.
The most encouraging thing is that the blows survived evenly. In July, the team batting average of 0.302 and 7 homers are all 2nd. Among the main axes, veteran Yang Eui-ji hit 0.478 and Kim Jae-ho hit hard with a batting average of 0.438. Another positive factor is that Jose Rojas, a foreign hitter who has been in trouble throughout the season, is hitting 0.375 in July. Kang Seung-ho (0.314), Jang Seung-hyeon (0.313), and Heo Gyeong-min (0.308) also maintain a good hitting feel.
Park Se-hyeok’s free agent transfer to NC ahead of this season, Park Jun-young, a compensation player, is also contributing to the upward trend. Park Joon-young was first called up to the first team on the 7th and had 4 hits in 8 at-bats, 1 home run and 3 RBIs in 3 games. Adding to the stable third base defense, he is definitely making a mark on manager Lee.
Coach Lee turned all the balls to the players. He emphasized, “They are originally talented players. I want to think that the potential players need to come out only came out a little late. I waited a lot, but the players did not give up and prepared well.”
He emphasized that there is no need to be happy about the 8th consecutive win right away, nor to be frustrated that the streak ended someday. He believed that if he accumulated one win at a time, he would be able to laugh together at the end of the season.
Coach Lee said, “There are many more difficult times ahead.