‘Suddenly ranked 4th’ Doosan aims to surpass its nemesis SSG and leap to the top rankings
The momentum of the Doosan Bears, which has begun to rise despite adversity, is unstoppable. Doosan's performance, which began May with 9 consecutive wins, rose from 7th to 4th.
It is more meaningful as it is a feat achieved after overcoming a chaotic atmosphere both internally and externally, such as former Doosan's Oh Jae-won's 'drug prescribing' incident and the departure of foreign pitchers. The foreign pitcher who left will soon return.
Brandon Waddell, who was down to the second team for two weeks last month due to back pain, has been pitching well since his return and is providing stability to the starting lineup. In addition, Raul Alcantara, who was diagnosed with a right elbow sprain and has not pitched since the 21st of last month, is nearing his return by starting bullpen pitching this week.
Doosan is on the rise even in the absence of foreign players, so expectations are high for the future.
We need to maintain the flow as good news awaits us, and the match between SSG Landers at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul starting on the 21st is important.
Doosan is particularly unable to break its weak performance against SSG that has continued since last year. Last season, Doosan lost all matches against the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams, LG Twins, KT Wiz, and SSG. With 14 wins, 2 draws, and 32 losses to only 3 teams, the winning percentage barely exceeded .304 (0.304).
Doosan has broken off its bad relationship with LG and KT this season. Doosan has 4 wins and 1 loss against LG and 5 wins and 1 loss against KT this season. In particular, they won all five games against two teams played in May, when they were on the rise. However, Doosan has not yet been able to break off its natural enemy relationship with SSG, losing all three games held in Incheon from the 2nd to the 4th of last month. In particular, in the third game at that time, Alcantara suffered a difficult loss, losing 2-3 despite pitching well and allowing two runs in eight innings. This three-game series also has elements of anxiety from Doosan’s perspective. This is because Choi Won-jun, who collapsed after giving up 6 runs in 3 innings in the first game as a starter, is stepping up. Choi Won-jun was moved down to the second team after his poor performance against SSG last month. However, since he pitched well in 2 of the 3 games since his return, allowing 2 runs in 5 innings, we expect him to pitch well in this game. In addition, Roenis Elias, who was scheduled to pitch for SSG, left the team due to a side injury, so Yeo Geon-wook will serve as a replacement starter on this day. This is definitely good news for Doosan, who scored only 6 points in 29 innings in 4 games against Elias last season. If Doosan achieves good results in its match against its natural enemy SSG, it is expected that it will be possible to leap to the top rank as it is only one game behind NC in 3rd place and Samsung in 2nd place.