“Even if (Shin) Young-woo pitches a perfect game, I will remove him from the roster.”

NC Dinos manager Lee Ho-jun stated he would manage Shin Young-woo, who is starting the game against the NC Dinos on the 14th at Changwon NC Park.

Shin Young-woo started against Samsung in Daegu on the 8th. It was his first start of the season. He pitched 5 innings without allowing a hit, issuing 2 walks and hitting 2 batters, striking out 7, and giving up 1 run while achieving a no-hitter. Although the team lost 0-1 and Shin became the losing pitcher, his ability to shut down Samsung's well-structured lineup without allowing a hit was a significant achievement.

After that, he received a lot of expectations and earned another start opportunity. It seemed he was proving his improved skills from the winter training, including the Australian Baseball League.

Having shown potential, he steps back onto the mound with renewed expectations. However, even if Shin Young-woo pitches well, there are no plans to maintain a normal rotation for the time being.

Manager Lee Ho-jun explained, “Even if (Shin) Young-woo pitches a perfect game today, I will remove him from the roster. It’s easy to think that if he continues to pitch well, he should stay in the rotation, but he can easily collapse if we push him too hard.”

He cited the recent example of Mok Ji-hoon. Mok pitched 5 innings with 1 run against KT on May 7 and 5 innings with 1 run against SSG on the 14th for 2 consecutive wins. Although he performed well with 6 innings and 4 runs against Hanwha on the 20th, he was pulled from the game without completing 5 innings in his next two appearances, becoming the losing pitcher. On the 28th against SSG, he pitched 2⅔ innings, allowing 6 hits (including 1 home run), and struck out 4 while allowing 6 runs (4 earned runs), and on the 3rd against LG, he pitched 3⅔ innings, allowing 7 hits (including 1 home run), with 3 walks, 1 hit batter, and allowed 6 runs.

The manager noted, “Mok Ji-hoon was a case in point. I thought he could stay in the normal rotation after getting 2 wins, but he was not good for 3 consecutive games, which made me realize it was our greed.” He added, “We plan to manage him by pitching him a little and if he does poorly, we can pull him back out to regain his balance. In the end, he would just be resting for about one turn. Therefore, we plan to use Mok Ji-hoon and Shin Young-woo in this way.”

This method is actually how manager Lee Ho-jun envisioned operating with 6-7 starting pitchers at the beginning of the season. Although the starting pitchers he planned, such as Lee Jae-hak and Lee Yong-chan, are currently unavailable due to injuries, he intended to build the starting rotation this way. Logan Riley, Shin Min-hyeok, Kim Nok-won, Shin Young-woo, and Mok Ji-hoon are expected to shoulder the starting rotation for the time being.

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