Baseball’s Doosan Bears swept the Kiwoom Heroes behind a dominant performance from foreign ace Raul Alcantara and a pinch-hit home run from Yang Ji Hyun, who returned from injury two weeks ago.
Doosan got off to a clean start to the week with a 6-1 win over visiting Kiwoom in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on Wednesday.
Doosan returned to a winning percentage of 5.5 percent (51 wins, 1 loss, 51 ties) and remained in fifth place in the league.
Doosan starter Alcantara threw 101 pitches over seven innings, allowing three hits and one walk while striking out seven to pick up his 11th win of the season.
Alcantara, a “hero hunter,” showed off his strong side against Kiwoom for the first time since 2019 when he played for the KT WIZ, winning nine of his last 10 appearances.
He didn’t need to throw a variety of pitches.
He operated with virtually two pitches – a 156 mph fastball (59 pitches) and a sharp forkball (29 pitches) – while his slider (nine pitches), changeup (three pitches) and curveball (one pitch) were for show.
Alcantara, who had a no-hitter through four innings, gave up back-to-back singles to Lee Ju-hyung and Joo Sung-won in the fifth, but struck out pinch-hitter Jeon Byung-woo and pinch-hitter Kim Dong-heon.
Lim Byung-wook was hit by a pitch and thrown out trying to steal second base to end the threat.
Doosan batters helped Alcantara with timely runs.
After a leadoff single by Cho and a double by Jose Rojas put runners on first and second in the first inning, Doosan took the lead on a double by Yang Suk-hwan.
In the third, with runners on second and third, Kim Jae-hwan’s fly ball was misplayed by first baseman Kim Woong-bin, and Kang Seung-ho’s RBI double sealed the win.
In the eighth inning, Yang Yang-ji, who had returned to the first team ahead of the game, celebrated his comeback.
Coming to the plate with the bases loaded, Yang lined a two-pitch fastball from Yoon Seok-won over the left-center field fence for his 10th home run of the season.
With the home run, Yang became the 15th player in history to reach double-digit home runs in 10 consecutive seasons.
Yang’s pinch-hit home run was his fourth career and first in 2,217 days for Doosan since July 27, 2017, against Suwon KT.
Kiwoom’s replacement, Kim Sun-ki, did his job with four innings of eight-hit ball, six strikeouts and five runs (two earned), but was handed his first loss of the season due to a silent batting lineup.
Kiwoom got one run back in the ninth inning on Kim Joo-hyung’s RBI double. 파워볼사이트