Doosan finished 9 games in July with 9 consecutive wins. The final result of the first half was 42 wins, 36 losses and 1 draw (0.538 win rate). 1st place LG Twins and 6.5 games, 2nd place SSG Landers and 4 games closer. Baseball people say, “The season is long.” However, there are not many coaches who plan and operate the season with a long breath. This is because every at-bat in every game is the moment of victory for the coach and the players.
Concentrating on the win in one at-bat, the win in one game, can result in the season being lost. Baseball trends change every year, but the regular season operation eventually converges with ‘selection baseball'. When the starting lineup is stable, the team can control runs and manage the bullpen. Of course, there are coaches who try to overcome their starting weaknesses with the bullpen. However, ‘anomaly' is just a ‘second best' when the standard is impossible.
The foundation of Doosan's rising trend lies in ‘Jeongseok'. Even when Lee Seung-yeop took over as head coach last winter, the Doosan starting lineup was strong. There were proven domestic resources Choi Won-joon and Kwak Bin, and 20-win pitcher Raul Alcantara also returned to his former team. However, problems continued to arise with the selection team. Dylan Pyle was out of the spring camp for a long time due to an injury, and Kwak Bin was also absent due to an injury in early May. Choi Won-jun and Choi Seung-yong, the 5th starting candidate, were sluggish.
Then the batting line slowed down. The pace of Yang Eui-ji, the main hitter he trusted, came up late, and Kim Jae-hwan, the fourth hitter, and Jose Rojas, the foreign hitter, were sluggish. Kang Seung-ho, Kim In-tae, Ahn Jae-seok, and Kim Dae-han, who were selected as starting candidates, also suffered from injuries and sluggishness. When the standard is broken, the temptation of the anomaly comes. It was the same with ‘novice' coach Lee Seung-yeop and the Doosan players. There were also several ineffective bunt maneuvers to get a point.
However, director Lee Seung-yeop soon returned with ‘perseverance'. After coach Kim In-sik in the 1990s, the colors of Doosan's command tower, such as Kim Gyeong-moon and Kim Tae-hyung, were visible to him. Director Lee said, “Someday, ‘the time' will come,” and he did not change the big frame he had set. In director Lee's interviews, words like “endure,” “endure,” and “wait” always appeared. The degree to which the batting order was changed as a change of mood was the only change.
Coach Lee Seung-yeop did not play bullpen baseball despite the lack of starting pitchers. Instead, Jang Won-joon, who has been steadily quenching in the 2nd Army, filled the vacancy. Even when he sent out a substitute starter, he entrusted the longest innings possible. Hitters who went to the Futures (2nd team) due to sluggish performance also focused on mental stability, not technology.
At the end of June, the end of the wait began to appear. Kwak Bin returned healthy, and substitute foreign pitcher Brandon Waddell joined. As of June 22nd, Doosan's starting ERA was quite high at 4.01 (6th place). However, starting from the time when Kwak Bin and Brandon pitched well on the 23rd and 24th of the same month, the average ERA in 14 starts was 1.95, overwhelmingly leading the KBO League (2.79 for the Hanwha Eagles).
The batting line is also set up according to the standard. Players such as Kang Seung-ho, Kim Jae-ho, and Rojas, who returned from the second team after taking care of their minds, not their bodies, are doing their part one by one. Yang Eui-ji, who suffered from intensive checks from the opponent's battery, is even hotter in July (batting average of 0.481) as the batting line rises together. During the 9 consecutive victories in July, Doosan ran a team batting average of 0.298, 96 hits, OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) of 0.818 (above first place), 8 homers, 52 runs, and 137 bases (above second place).
The advantage of Jeongseok is that there are few side effects. The Lotte Giants, who had won 9 consecutive wins in May, lost momentum for a while in June. 토토 This is because the starting team is weak and the batting power is low, and the back spirit has weakened after competing with the bullpen. The team that the starting lineup endures is different. It is possible to suppress conceded points stably, so players can maintain their stamina and momentum for a long time.
It is still too early to judge Lee Seung-yeop's performance as a ‘newcomer'. However, it is true that Doosan’s current appearance is close to the concept before the season. Star coaches often intervene in players' play based on their own success experiences. It is easy to overdo it with the desire to win. However, director Lee was patient and waited. And he caught the ‘time'.
