Suddenly, they broke through the 7th inning wall. KIA’s ’19-year-old Jang Won-sam’ emerged.
KIA’s ‘Smile Guy’ Yoon Young-chul (19) started against SSG in Gwangju on June 6, giving up two runs on six hits in seven innings with two walks and one strikeout. Despite the loss, he lowered his ERA slightly from 2.95 to 2.89. The offense only managed to score one run, so it was a pretty good performance.
SBS Sports commentator Lee Soon-cheol said, “I feel like I’m watching Jang Won-sam in his prime,” while covering Yoon Young-chul’s games this season. Jang Won-sam was a classic late-2000s-early-2010s pitcher who relied on a fastball in the low 140s, but also had sharp command. 메이저놀이터
In other words, Lee Soon-cheol was a fan favorite. In real life, Yoon has shown the same extreme command in the pros that he showed in high school, focusing on his pitches and not worrying about the name value of the batter. A little more velocity would be nice, but he’s already got enough to make a good pitch.
On this day, he cooked the league’s top-ranked SSG offense to perfection. The SSG batting lineup traditionally has a lot of one-hit wonders, but Yoon was shaky but not broken. After giving up back-to-back singles to Park Sung-ho and Choi Jung in the first inning to load the bases, he hit a slider to Ha Jae-hoon for a double. He tried to go for the body, but it was driven up the middle.
Importantly, he pitched flawlessly afterward. He relied more on his slider and changeup than his fastball. He was never in any danger until the seventh inning, going seven innings on 99 pitches, his longest outing of his career.
Until this day, Yoon had only one quality start (1 run in 6 innings against Hanwha on May 24). He had good control at the high school level and still has good velocity for a rookie, but he doesn’t have the velocity to overpower top-level hitters. His foul counts are high, and he can’t throw many innings.
Commentator Lee Soon-cheol suggests that he can gather power on the ball by slowing down the process of separating his hands from his glove once he’s in the pitching motion, which isn’t something that happens overnight, but we’ve seen Yoon make changes on his own. He adjusted his pitching tempo for a while and made some changes to his pitch design. It paid off in the seventh inning.
In nine games, Yoon is 3-2 with a 2.89 ERA. He hasn’t had much support from his batting lineup, but he’s always smiling. He’s unbeatable in the Rookie of the Year race. He is the strongest of the five starters in the league. He is also the strongest among the five starters in the league. The second Jang Won-sam has arrived in Gwangju. He is a treasure for KIA.