The Hanwha Eagles of Korea's professional baseball responded to the season's first visit to the ballpark by owner Kim Seung-yeon with a three-game winning streak. The batting lineup exploded with a season-high 12 runs.
On 11th, Hanwha won 12-2 against the Kiwoom Heroes in a home game held at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon. Ryu Hyun-jin reported his first win of the season with six scoreless innings, while Moon Hyun-bin and Estevan Florial combined for back-to-back home runs, recording four hits and three RBIs, and three hits and three RBIs, respectively.
Kim Seung-yeon, chairman of Hanwha Group, visited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the team's founding and the opening of Hanwha Life Eagles Park, encouraging and supporting the players. Hanwha exploded with a season-high 17 hits and 12 runs, achieving their first three-game winning streak of the season. With a season record of 7 wins and 10 losses, Hanwha moved out of last place. Having suffered two consecutive losses, Kiwoom, now at 6 wins and 11 losses, fell from a tie with Hanwha in 9th place to 10th.
It was a game highlighting the excellent performance of Hanwha's starting pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin. He dominated the Kiwoom batting lineup with one hit, one walk, and six strikeouts over six innings, without allowing a score. Before allowing a single to Lim Byung-wook with two outs in the third inning, Ryu recorded eight consecutive perfect outs and allowed no additional baserunners aside from issuing a walk to Kim Woong-bin in the fifth.
The Kiwoom batting lineup struggled, missing cleanup hitter Ruben Cardenas, who was on parental leave, and both Lee Joo-hyung and Choi Joo-hwan, who were out due to ankle and calf injuries, respectively. They failed to create significant opportunities against Ryu Hyun-jin, managing only two baserunners, neither of whom reached second base. Ryu overwhelmed the young Kiwoom hitters with his precise pitching and varied breaking balls.
With a total of 88 pitches, he threw 58 strikes and 30 balls. He primarily relied on fastballs, reaching a maximum speed of 146 km/h, with an average of 143 km/h (49 pitches), mixing in curves (19 pitches), changeups (12 pitches), cutters (7 pitches), and sliders (1 pitch). By using curves more than usual, he disrupted the timing of Kiwoom's batters. Ryu Hyun-jin, who recorded his first win in his fourth appearance of the season, lowered his earned run average from 3.18 to 2.35.
Hanwha's batting lineup also supported Ryu Hyun-jin for the first time in a while. Having only provided three runs in support over 17 innings in the previous three games, they managed five runs on this day.
From the first attack in the bottom of the first inning, Hanwha took the lead. Leadoff hitter Hwang Young-mook connected with a single on the first pitch fastball from Kiwoom's starter Kim Yoon-ha, then advanced to second base due to a passed ball by catcher Kim Keon-hee. Following that, Moon Hyun-bin hit a timely single to right field on the fifth pitch from Kim Yoon-ha, putting Hanwha ahead.
In the bottom of the second inning, Hanwha faced potential trouble when Choi Jae-hoon's bunt turned into a foul fly ball to first base after creating a no-out first and second situation with a walk by Kim Tae-yeon and a single by Lee Jin-young. However, Shim Woo-jun hit a timely single to center field, adding another run. Continuing with two outs and runners on first and third, Florial hit a timely single to right field, extending the score to 3-0.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Hanwha secured the victory by adding two more points. After one out, Florial hit a double to left-center, followed by Moon Hyun-bin hitting a one-RBI double to right-center. Although a drive down the right field line was overturned as foul after a video review, it resulted in the same outcome. Nor Si-hwan also registered a timely single to left-center, bringing Hanwha's lead to 5-0. Moon Hyun-bin had two hits and two RBIs from three at-bats.
After Ryu Hyun-jin left the game, Kiwoom added two runs in the seventh inning. Against Hanwha's reliable pitcher Park Sang-won, Kim Woong-bin walked with two outs, and after a passed ball by the opposing team, Jang Jae-young hit a timely single to left field, scoring Kiwoom's first run. With two outs and a runner on first, Jeon Tae-hyun's high ball hit Florial's glove and fell, preventing the inning from ending. Following the error, with two outs and runners on first and third, a wild pitch by Park Sang-won allowed Jang Jae-young to come home.
With the score at 5-2, Hanwha exploded for a big inning in the bottom of the seventh, scoring seven runs, including the season's first back-to-back home runs. Leadoff hitter Florial hit a fastball, which was centered and measured at 143 km/h from Kiwoom's rookie right-hander Kim Seo-jun, sending it over the eight-meter-high Monster Wall. The distance was 125 meters, marking his first home run of the season. Following that, Moon Hyun-bin pulled a high fastball at 142 km/h from Kim Seo-jun on the fifth pitch, hitting a solo shot that soared over the Monster Wall as well. The distance was 130 meters, marking Moon Hyun-bin's third home run of the season.
But it didn't end there. After Nor Si-hwan's double to left, and Chae Eun-sung's walk, Kim Tae-yeon hit a one-RBI double to right-center, followed by Lee Jin-young's one-RBI single to center field, Choi Jae-hoon's ground ball to third base, Florial's sacrifice fly to center field, and Moon Hyun-bin's one-RBI timely hit to left, adding five more runs. With 12 runs scored, it marked Hanwha's first double-digit scoring of the season. Moon Hyun-bin had four hits and four RBIs from five at-bats, Florial recorded three hits and three RBIs from four at-bats, Nor Si-hwan had two hits and one RBI from five at-bats, and Lee Jin-young had two hits and one RBI from four at-bats.
Kiwoom's starter Kim Yoon-ha allowed five runs (four earned) on eight hits, one walk, and one strikeout over five innings, suffering his third loss of the season. He mixed fastballs, averaging 144 km/h (56 pitches), with a maximum speed of 148 km/h, along with curves (23 pitches) and forkballs (10 pitches), but he was targeted by Hanwha's batters. The second pitcher, rookie Kim Seo-jun, faced a harsh debut in the first team, allowing seven hits (two home runs), two walks, and six runs over 1⅔ innings. Yasiel Puig, who faced Ryu Hyun-jin for the first time in six years since his Major League days, was silent in the matchup with no hits in three at-bats, including one strikeout.
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