Baseball team coach Lee Kang-cheol (pictured), who is in charge of the 5th World Baseball Classic (WBC), is focusing on the game against Australia. When announcing the final 30 players on the 4th, he said, “I thought of the match with Australia as the top priority and selected it.”
Six of the 15 hitters are right-handed hitters: Park Byung-ho (KT), Choi Jeong (SSG), Kim Ha-seong (San Diego), Park Gun-woo (NC), Yang Eui-ji (Doosan), and Lee Ji-young (Kiwoom). Tommy Edman (St. Louis) is a switch hitter, and the other eight are left-handed hitters. Considering the fact that there are many right-handers in Australia, the proportion of left-handed hitters was increased.
The composition of the pitching staff is more ‘customized for the game against Australia’. Manager Lee Kang-cheol said, “We focused on selecting pitchers who would be strong against Australia, although not all 15 players.”
The KBO Technical Committee observed the evaluation match between Australia and Japan in October last year and analyzed that Australian batters are very vulnerable to breaking pitches with large drops. Among the 15 selected pitchers, there are several pitchers who throw a lot of forkballs, such as Park Se-woong (Lotte), Kwak Bin and Jung Cheol-won (Doosan), and Lee Yong-chan (NC). Joon Sohn (KT) and Wonjoong Kim (Lotte) are good at curves. A characteristic of the national team is that there are many pitchers who use falling breaking balls.
Manager Lee Kang-cheol said, “I picked a lot of grounder type pitchers. They all have deciding pitches and are pitchers who throw each big breaking ball. “I thought of the match against Australia first,” he explained.
The reason why the national team is focusing on 메이저놀이터 Australia is that it is the first opponent they will face in this tournament. Korea, which was assigned to Group B in the first round along with Australia, Japan, the Czech Republic and China, will have its first match against Australia on March 9 as the tournament begins. Since the opponent for the next game is Japan, which is the most burdensome, we must beat Australia to start.
South Korea was eliminated in the first round in both the last two WBCs. Getting hit in the first game was the fatal blow. In 2013, they lost to the Netherlands 0-5, so they were eliminated after defeating both Australia and Taiwan.
Australia is not a strong country, but it is not as ‘outside’ as the Netherlands or Israel at the time. From the first tournament, he has been consistently participating in the WBC finals. Since the game against Australia can influence the atmosphere of the tournament itself, we need to prepare more carefully and be vigilant than the game against Japan.
For a full-fledged analysis of Australia, director Lee Kang-cheol steps forward. Director Lee Kang-cheol left for Australia on the 5th. With battery coach Jin Gap-yong, pitching coach Jung Hyun-wook, Shim Jae-hak quality control coach, and power analyst Kim Jun-ki, they plan to check the skills of the players through the Australian ABL League for 5 days and 4 nights and return to prepare for the tournament.