The biggest concern on the mound of the Lotte Giants last year was Glenn Sparkman, who was highly anticipated as a fastball pitcher.
Sparkman had an average ERA of 5.31 with 2 wins and 4 losses in 19 games due to overlapping factors such as skill and bad luck, and was eventually replaced by Dan Strayley at the end of July.
Lotte also renewed the contract with left-handed pitcher Charlie Barnes, who kept the mound all season last year, for $150,000 and right-handed pitcher Strayley for $1 million.
Barnes played 186 ⅓ innings in 31 games last year and played an active role with an average ERA of 3.62 with 12 wins and 12 losses.
Lotte, who renewed the contract with two players with stable results, was evaluated for building a solid starting lineup this season.
However, when the lid was opened, the two foreign pitchers started the season insecure with grades that were not much different from Sparkman.
Barnes started against the Samsung Lions at Daegu Samsung Lions Park on the 16th and collapsed with 10 hits (1 home run), 3 walks and 8 runs in 5⅔ innings.
Control was completely shaken to the extent that even two balls that hit the body were given away, and the team was completely defeated 1-9.
On the 11th, the first appearance of the season against the Busan LG Twins, Barnes, who went down the mound early with 4 runs in 4⅓ innings, had an average ERA of 10.80 with 1 loss.
Strayley’s situation is not much different.
Strayley, who made 3 runs in 5 innings as a starter in the opening match against Doosan Bears on the 1st, is expected to score 5 runs in 6 innings (against Busan kt wiz on the 8th) and 4 runs in 4⅔ innings (against Daegu Samsung on the 14th). did not reach
Strayley’s three-game performance is 2 losses and an average ERA of 5.74.
We should expect victory on the day a foreign pitcher takes the mound, but Lotte recorded only 1 win and 4 losses in 5 games with Strayley and Barnes this season.
This is all the more disappointing because Na Kyun-an has become a domestic ace and has 3 wins and an average ERA of 1.45 in 3 games토토사이트.
In addition, he goes down the mound early and passes the burden on to the bullpen pitchers.
Strayley and Barnes played a total of 25⅔ innings in 5 games, barely exceeding 5 innings on average.
Fastball prospect Lee Min-seok, who was expected to be part of the bullpen’s winning team, has left the lineup due to elbow surgery, which inevitably increases fatigue throughout the bullpen.
Since it is still early in the season, it is premature to talk about replacing foreign pitchers.
Both players are players who have invested a considerable amount of annual salary, and the club has no choice but to expect to regain the form they showed last year as soon as possible.
It is also a realistic problem that the number of players that can be recruited is limited as the season has just begun in both the United States and Japan.
However, if you recall that he belatedly replaced Sparkman, who was sluggish last season, when the burden on the mound increased, it is too risky to just trust and wait.
Lotte, who declared ‘Win Now’ to achieve results this season, opened its wallet wide in the FA market last winter.
Lotte, whose foreign pitchers collapsed all at once at the beginning of the season, is deepening its concerns.