After being hit by a pitch to his right calf in the final game of the first half of the KBO season, KT Wiz pitcher Ko Young-pyo showed a “tapering effort” and gave his team a valuable victory.
Ko took the mound against the KIUM Heroes in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on Wednesday and pitched seven innings of five-hit ball, striking out nine and walking none to lead KT to a 9-0 victory.
With the win, KT swept a three-game series against Gocheok to end the first half on a high note. The team remained in seventh place with 37 wins, 2 losses and 41 draws in the first half.
Kiwoom, on the other hand, was in total disarray, losing seven straight games to start the second half in ninth place (38W2D46L). This is in stark contrast to last year, when they ended the first half in second place behind SSG Landers, who won the wire-to-wire title.
KT’s batsmen were highly focused on the day, scoring runs at every opportunity to secure an easy win. The batsmen scored runs evenly across the batting order.
However, the star of the show was starting pitcher Ko Young-pyo, who shut down the Kiwoom bats until the seventh inning and never gave them a chance to catch up.
He pitched without a care in the world, especially after being hit in the calf by a hard hit ball.
In the bottom of the second inning, with the bases loaded, Joo Sung-won’s pitch hit Ko Young-pyo in the right calf. Feeling the pain, Ko immediately went into the KT dugout and temporarily taped the area where the ball hit him, and then showed his determination to get back on the mound.
In the bottom of the second inning, with the bases loaded, Ko set the tone by 토토사이트 holding the runner at first base.
He threw every pitch with a sense of mission to fulfill his role as the team needed a win.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, he faced two hits and had runners on first and second, but he struck out Kim Woong-bin and got Song Sung-moon to ground out to first base. In the bottom of the seventh, he allowed two hits to put runners on first and third, but induced Kim Jae-hyun to ground into a double play to end the inning.
The win was also significant for Ko Young-pyo. He became the first pitcher to win a game in his 10th career start. He had suffered four losses in his previous nine games without a win, breaking the jinx. He also improved to 8-5 on the season.