One game into his career. And a return to the first team after five years. It’s a big day for SSG Landers’ Cho Sung-hoon.
SSG started Cho Sung-hoon as the starting pitcher against the Jamsil Doosan Bears on the 20th. Park Jong-hoon was sent down to the second team due to poor performance, and “Rookie” Song Young-jin, who had been filling the starting spot, is also readjusting in the second team. This week alone, the starting two spots were open. Kim Won-hyung’s first choice was Cho Sung-hoon.
A 2018 second-round pick of the SK Wyverns (now SSG), Cho Sung-hoon’s first-team record was two runs in ⅔ of an inning. He was 토토사이트 called up once as a rookie in 2018 to make a relief appearance, and the following year he joined the Commercial Baseball Organization. After his discharge in 2020, he spent a long time in the Futures League.
His pace has been the best this year. In nine games (five starts) in the Futures League this year, Cho went 1-1 with a 4.18 ERA in 23⅔ innings pitched, 26 strikeouts, 14 walks, and 11 runs allowed. More than just his stats, the Futures coaching staff reported that he had “improved a lot,” and head coach Kim Won-hyung chose Cho Sung-hoon as his replacement after receiving a strong recommendation from the second team.
He stands at 1.88 meters tall and throws a fastball up to 150 kilometers. He has a fast arm swing and a deception motion that makes his pitches feel faster to batters, according to the club.
In his first start in five years, Cho went four innings against the Doosan lineup, giving up five hits, striking out two and walking none. It was impressive that his pitches didn’t shake much even after being hit. He was nervous because it had been a long time since he’d pitched for the first team, but he kept his cool.
After giving up a single to Jeong Soo-bin in the top of the first inning, he threw his main weapon, a slider, against the second batter, the hard-hitting Kim Jae-hwan. The first inning ended with three batters on base.
In the second inning, he allowed singles to Yang Ji and Heo Kyung-min on fastballs, then gave up a hard-hit ball to Kim Dae-hyun to load the bases. However, he regained his confidence after getting Kim Jae-ho to hit a foul fly to the first baseman. He then struck out Lee Yoo-chan on a slider.
After retiring Doosan’s key batters in the third inning, Cho Sung-hoon struck out the side with runners on second and third in the fourth to end the inning.
He had only thrown 62 pitches by the end of the fourth inning, but manager Kim Won-hyung quickly replaced him as the score remained 0-0. It was his first first-team appearance in a long time, so the calculation seems to have been to get off while the going was good and wait for the next one.