An impregnable firefighter in the KBO. But when it comes to the international stage, he becomes small. Call it ‘national team jitters’ or ‘domestic jinx’ at this point. This is the story of Ko Woo-seok, a pitcher for the Hangzhou Asian Games baseball team and the saving grace of the ‘invincible LG’.
With 139 saves in his first-team career, Go Woo-seok led the team with 42 saves last year. This season, after a slow start due to injuries, he’s been able to keep LG in the lead with 15 saves. While he is a recognized closer on the domestic stage, he hasn’t made much of an impression since making the national team.
He was disappointed with his performance at the Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 World Baseball Classic due to injuries and poor performances, so he will have a lot to live up to this time around.
“I think I’m always motivated every time I put on the national team uniform. It’s partly because I couldn’t pitch in the last tournament due to injury, and I want to do my best this time without getting sick,” he said.
“It’s true that I haven’t performed well in international competitions, so I always feel sorry for myself. I feel the same way as the national team coach. It’s very tempting to feel sorry for ourselves for not performing well, but I try to refrain from being greedy.”
He arrived in Hangzhou with the determination to win, but he was disappointed from the start. In the second game against Chinese Taipei, he gave up two runs on two hits and one walk in one inning.
Trailing 0-2 in the eighth inning, Go Woo-seok, South Korea’s fifth pitcher, gave up a leadoff double to Wu Nianting and a walk to Li Haoyu. He induced Shen Hao-wei to ground out to first base to end the inning without a run, but gave up a single to Lin Zhihao.메이저사이트
As if the two-run deficit wasn’t bad enough, the bats went silent and Kou gave up two more runs to make it 0-4. Victory was far away and defeat was closer.
Manager Ryu Jung-il met with the media after the game and said, “First of all, Go Woo-seok is the closer. He was supposed to pitch one inning, but we used up all our cards.” It meant that there was nothing to do as even Go Woo-seok collapsed.
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