"Moon Dong-ju is back to normal." But the possibility of excluding the opening starting rotation? What about the 5th starting?

"Moon Dong-ju is back to normal." But the possibility of excluding the opening starting rotation? What about the 5th starting?

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The starting lineup for this season's Hanwha Eagles has up to four starting pitchers. "Monster ace" Ryu Hyun-jin and "foreign one-two punch" Cody Ponce and Ryan Weiss are also preparing well for this season. Eom Sang-baek, who signed a four-year contract worth 7.8 billion won (6.37 million U.S. dollars) ahead of this season, will also definitely fill a starting position.메이저놀이터

Moon Dong-ju was the likely candidate for the fifth starting position. Moon, who joined Hanwha as the first nominee for the 2022 Rookie Draft, became the "Rookie King" with eight wins, eight losses and an ERA of 3.72 in 2023.

Last year, he had seven wins and seven losses and an earned run average of 5.17 in 21 games. He struggled a bit in 13 games in the first half with three wins and six losses and an earned run average of 6.92 but settled down with four wins and one loss and an earned run average of 2.60 in eight games in the second half. However, he ended the season early due to shoulder pain in the second half, and eventually started rehabilitation afterwards.

Moon also showed strong commitment to rebound. He worked hard to return to a rehabilitation camp in Thailand to build up his body.

He started pitching at the first camp in Melbourne, Australia, but has yet to improve his physical condition as much as other starting pitchers. "Moon Dong-ju took rest at the end of Australia and returned to normal," Hanwha pitching coach Yang Sang-moon said. "He will start pitching in the bullpen in Okinawa soon."

All four starting pitchers including Ryu had actual pitching in Australia. Ponce and Weiss pitched in Okinawa, while Um Sang-baek will pitch in Kia Tigers game on Saturday and Ryu in KT Wiz game on Sunday.

Compared to other players, he had less chances to improve his sense of play in actual games. However, rather than rushing to join the starting lineup, he plans to slowly and perfectly return to the starting lineup. In the end, there is a chance that the starting lineup rotation will fail. "Even if I can't start in the beginning, for example, I have experience in starting a bullpen session, so I can move on when I can pitch. If I choose starting from now on, it could be difficult to increase the number of pitches, so I decided to prepare only what I can do healthily," Yang said.

Yang continued, "Even if you are not the starting pitcher, you can join the team after about a month. I don't think there is any need to rush to prepare for the starting pitcher as we are in a tight schedule. I try not to put too much stress on him. I wanted to throw him in a healthy way and let him go."

Lee Sang-gyu is the most likely candidate for the 5th starter position vacated by Moon Dong-ju. Lee Sang-gyu transferred from LG to Hanwha in the second draft ahead of last season. He had 1 win, 4 losses and an ERA of 5.63 in 21 games.

Ahead of this season, we have properly prepared for the season. He aimed for solid growth by conducting personal training in the U.S. at his own expense. In a practice game against the Australian national team on the 16th, he also showed performance by allowing two hits, four outs, seven strikeouts, and one run in two ⅓ innings. There were some walks, but it was not such a negative sign because of the disappointing S-zone decision.