Korean ace Kwak Bin (24) of the Doosan Bears of the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) pitched well in his first game back in 25 days.
Kwak Bin started a home game against the KIA Tigers at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Wednesday and lasted six innings with 109 pitches, two hits, two walks, nine strikeouts and one run.
Doosan will clinch a spot in the postseason with a win over Kia, regardless of the rest of the schedule.
Doosan, which finished ninth last year and did not play autumn baseball, sent Kwak-Bin to the mound in a game that could determine whether it returns to the postseason, the first step in its “dynasty rebuilding”.
Kwak played in the Hangzhou Asian Games with the national team but did not pitch a single game due to a bout with gallbladder symptoms.
He is the only player to miss a game for the national team this season.
Luckily, the injury was not serious and after returning home, Kwak Binh was back to full fitness and used his strong pitches to turn the KIA bats around.
His pitches were a little shaky, but he didn’t allow a single hit until the third inning.
The Doosan bats scored three runs in the bottom of the third inning to ease the pressure on Kwak-Bin.
In the fourth inning, Kwak gave up back-to-back singles to Kim Sun-bin and Socrates Brito to put runners on first and third with no outs.
He threw a fastball to Lee Woo-sung, but the centre fielder caught the ball on the walking track for a sacrifice fly to score a run.
Kwak Bin then got Kim Tae-gun to ground out to short and Byun Woo-hyuk to strike out to end the threat.
Kwak took the mound in the fifth inning and struck out Kim Ho-ryung, Kim Kyu-sung on an outfield grounder and Kim Do-young on a fly out.
In the sixth, he struck out Ko Jong-wook and Kim Sun-bin before getting Socrates to ground out to short to end the inning with a 3-1 score. 스포츠토토