The sluggish performance in the first appearance was nothing but a ‘giu-woo’. SSG Landers foreign pitcher Kirk McCarty finished April successfully.
SSG won 4-1 in the first game of the season against Doosan Bears in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League held at Incheon SSG Landers Field on the 28th. With this victory, SSG’s season record was 14-8 (0.636)크크크벳.
McCarty, who took the mound as a starting pitcher, recorded 3 hits (1 home run), 2 walks, 8 strikeouts and 1 run in 6⅔ innings, harvesting 2 wins of the season. He threw 113 pitches, more than the previous most pitches in one individual game (107 pitches against the NC Dinos on the 15th). He used the cutter (46 pitches) the most, followed by the fastball (37 pitches), curveball (21 pitches), changeup (7 pitches) and slider (2 pitches). The highest speed of his fastball was 150 km / h.
He was stable from the start. McCarty was hit by Yang Seok-hwan in the first out in the first inning, but ended the inning with two fly balls. At the beginning of the second inning, he made his first tripartite inning. He did not give up a score until the third and fourth innings.
Except for allowing a solo home run to Jang Seung-hyeon after two outs in the top of the 5th inning, he continued his stable pitching. After two outs in the top of the 7th inning, Kim Jae-ho was sent to first base on a walk, but Noh Kyung-eun, who took over the mound, treated Jang Seung-hyeon as a fly ball in the outfield, so the earned run did not increase.
SSG replaced all foreign pitchers after last season. In particular, they had to find a new face who could play the role of ‘ace’ by letting go of Wilmer Font, who had contributed to the team for two years. The main character was McCarty.
On the 2nd, against the KIA Tigers, he suffered greatly with 10 hits (1 home run), 3 walks, 1 strikeout and 8 runs in 3⅓ innings, causing concern, but quickly found his skills. After that, in the three appearances, he threw at least 6 innings and achieved a quality start, and on this day, he also did his part with 6⅓ innings and 1 run.
SSG gained a lot of momentum in the ranking battle at the beginning of the season with McCarty’s stable performance in a situation where another foreign pitcher, Annie Romero, was virtually in the process of being replaced.