In his last five games, he’s given up 15 wild pitches. Of course, a pitcher can give up a walk, but the timing isn’t right. In the end, the manager called the player to the manager’s office for a meeting.
Oh Won-seok started against Gochuk Kiwoom on the 2nd and struggled, allowing five runs on eight hits (one home run) in four innings with three walks and two strikeouts. The fifth inning, with a 2-1 lead, was the most devastating. After a leadoff double by Kim Joo-hyung, a walk to Lee Hyung-jong and a single by Kim Hye-sung, he gave up back-to-back singles to Lee Jung-hoo and Lee Won-seok before giving way to Moon Seung-won. The team avoided defeat with a 9-5 comeback win, but the two-game losing streak, which followed a June 27 loss to Incheon LG Electronics (eight runs in five innings), has left their manager worried.
SSG manager Kim Won-hyung, who met with the team in Incheon on June 4, said, “We’re getting a lot of balls, but we’ve been in a slump for a month. I think the timing of his walks is not good. If you look at the Kiwoom game, he gave up a walk after two strikes.” “A pitcher is most comfortable when there are no runners on base, a little more comfortable when there is one, and the moment there are two, it becomes difficult. That’s something I always emphasize. You have to be gutsy, but you’re just trying to get the guy in front of you, so you’re going to struggle and you’re going to give up a hit. It’s been happening a lot lately,” he lamented.
As Kim pointed out, Oh has struggled in his last five games, going 1-3 with a 7.88 ERA. On June 21, he pitched five scoreless innings against Doosan in Jamsil to secure the win, but he faltered in consecutive games against the Changwon NC on June 9 (six innings, five runs), the Incheon KT on June 15 (four innings, five runs), the Incheon LG Electronics on June 27 (five innings, eight runs), and the Gochuk Kiwoom on July 2 (four innings, five runs). In that span, he gave up 13 walks and two hit batsmen, often putting himself in difficult situations.
A frustrated Kim called Oh Won-seok into the manager’s office on July 4 for a three-way meeting with pitching coach Cho Woong-chun. “I called him up and said, ‘The only thing I can do for you is to send you to the second team. I advised him, ‘There’s nothing I can do for you. In the end, (Oh) Won-seok has to be brave on the mound by himself. If it’s bad, the only option is to send him to the second team. Of course, I said this in a joking way,” he said.안전놀이터
Oh emphasized the importance of a quality start, which is the basic virtue of a starting pitcher. He advised him to aim for three runs in six innings, not a no-hitter. He said, “I don’t know why you play baseball if you pitch well for three or four innings and don’t give yourself a run in a crisis. If you get six innings and three runs, you’ve done well. If you don’t give up a run, it’s a vicious cycle, so I told him to be bold.”
Because of his affection for Oh, Kim called him into the manager’s office and said the cold words of second base, but he wanted him to rebound. “When you’re young, sometimes you want to do better,” Kim said, “but in this situation, you have nothing to lose by throwing like this. The player would be angry if he came down after a game like that, but I want him to have the guts to play baseball in the next game in the same situation. I told him to be strong on the way out,” he said, wishing him a better future.