Hanwha Eagles second-year fireballer Moon Dong-ju (20) overpowered the Dutch World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team and left a strong impression in his first appearance of the season.
On the 20th (hereinafter Korean time), Moon Dong-ju started a practice match against the Dutch WBC national team held at Salt River Field at Talking Stock in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. fought with He finished with only two outs in one inning shift according to the number of pitches, and although it was practically 1⅔ innings pitched, he overwhelmed the Dutch batters with a powerful pitch.
The Netherlands is a European baseball powerhouse that won 5-0 victories over Korea in the group stage twice in the WBC in 2013 and 2017. Recently, they showed their potential by advancing to the semifinals in two consecutive tournaments, and many veteran players were included in this tournament as well. If they advance to the quarterfinals with 1st or 2nd place in Group A, there is a possibility that they will face South Korea in Group B.
Active big leaguers such as Zander Bogarts (San Diego) and Jonathan Scoop (Detroit), who are participating in the major league spring camp, missed the game that day, but Andrelton Simmons, who hit 70 homers in 1226 major league games, and Didi Gregorius, who had 134 homers in 1077 games, 1 I was seated at the table setter for ~2.
In the 3rd and 4th times, Vladimir Valentin and Roger Bernardina, who played an active role as foreign hitters in Korean and Japanese baseball, were lined up. Valentin set the record for the most home runs in a season in Asia with 60 homers at the Yakult Swallows in 2013, and Bernardina is a member of the KIA Tigers’ combined championship in 2017 and has won the Golden Glove as an outfielder.
Against such veteran hitters, 20-year-old Moon Dong-ju showed off his power. After grounding Simmons to second base in the first inning, he struck out Gregorius with a high fastball after a 10-pitch full count. Gregorius continued to foul Moon Dong-ju’s fastball without timing it, and even flinched at his full-body strike.
Valentin allowed a walk in the full count game and finished the first inning with 23 pitches, but in the second inning, he had a three-way offense with 10 balls. Against Bernardina, he threw a changeup in two pitches to induce a fly ball out in right field. He then struck out Ray Patrick Dither (Miami), a minor league player, and finished the inning by catching Josh Philasios (Pittsburgh) with a ground ball to second base.
Moon Dong-ju’s total number of pitches that day was 33, with 22 strikes and 11 balls. The speed of the fastball was up to 156 km, and the average speed was 152 km, which was full of power. In mid-February, from the first actual pitch, he threw a ball comparable to last year’s highest speed (158 km). In addition to his fastball (22), he also threw a curve ball (6), slider (3), and changeup (2), testing his breaking ball as well.
After the game, Moon Dong-ju said, “I heard that there are many hitters from the major leagues in the Netherlands. He’s heard the name, but to be honest, I don’t know the exact face. After laughing, he laughed, saying, “I don’t throw after looking at the batter’s face anyway.” Regarding the game with Bernardina, a familiar face after playing at KIA for two years, “I threw two changeups today. (Thrown once) The first changeup was stuck in the ground, but the changeup thrown to Bernardina went well into the low strike zone. I think it’s okay for the ball to go into the low zone and make contact. He went out at the timing of the fastball and was hit in front and was able to catch Bernardina with a floating ball,” he explained. 먹튀검증
After Moon Dong-ju was called up to the first team in May of last year, Jose Rosa also started learning the changeup from pitching coach, and showed it in a real game as a starter at the end of September. He surprised the seniors by immediately using the changeup he learned from the master of the changeup, Jung Woo-ram, on the next stage. Moon Dong-ju, who focused on polishing his changeup during the post-season training league and finishing camp, showed his ability to learn quickly by catching Bernardina out with a changeup.
However, on this day, Moon Dong-ju played the game with a fastball rather than a breaking ball. He said, “It was my first game, so I thought I didn’t need to throw a lot of breaking balls. Since the other types of pitches are only possible if the fastball is good, today I entered the fastball with power. As a result, I had a lot of energy in the beginning, so it wasn’t good. It’s always bad at the beginning of the first episode, but I can’t keep doing that.”