S. Korea's WBC run ends in quarterfinals

With its pitchers getting knocked around left and right, South Korea's run at the World Baseball Classic ended with a big loss in the quarterfinals Friday night in Miami.

South Korea endured a 10-0 loss to the mighty Dominican Republic at loanDepot park, a game that was called after seven innings when Austin Wells' three-run shot provided the final margin of victory. Under WBC regulations, a game can be called early if a team is up by 15 runs after five innings or 10 runs after seven innings.

That the loss ended on a home run served as a microcosm of the way South Korea had played in the tournament up to that point.

South Korea is tied with the United States for the most home runs allowed with 10. Among the eight quarterfinalists, South Korea has given up the most hits (37) and also the most runs (29). In both categories, only the two winless countries that didn't make it out of the first round, Brazil and Czechia, have been worse than South Korea.

In Friday's loss, South Korea issued six walks to raise its total to 22, more than any team in the quarterfinals.

The pitching staff was shorthanded from the beginning, with two of the best homegrown starters in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), Won Tae-in of the Samsung Lions and Moon Dong-ju of the Hanwha Eagles, sidelined with injuries. St. Louis Cardinals reliever Riley O'Brien, eligible to pitch for South Korea as it is the country of his mother's birth, was initially named to the team but was dropped later due to a calf injury.

Even the presence of the trio wouldn't have resulted in a deeper run for South Korea, though, for the pitchers that the team did have mostly underperformed.

Hard-throwing KBO relievers didn't display their usual velocity during the tournament, and it rendered their fastball offerings eminently hittable even against lesser competition like Czechia and Chinese Taipei. Doosan Bears starter Gwak Been looked to be in midseason form with his velocity and touched 97.4 mph with his four-seam fastball in Friday's game, but it came at the expense of his control. Gwak allowed three straight walks in the third inning against the Dominicans, including two with the bases loaded that scored two runs.

The 38-year-old Hanwha Eagles lefty Ryu Hyun-jin got the start Friday, and he is perhaps the third best South Korean starter on his own KBO club -- further illustrating the national team's lack of pitching depth.

This was South Korea's first appearance in a knockout round since 2009. The country had been eliminated in the first round at the next three iterations of the tournament after losing the opening games on all three occasions.

South Korea ended that drought by winning the first game this time, beating Czechia 11-4 to open Pool C action. South Korea then pushed the defending champion Japan hard before falling 8-6 -- blowing a 3-0 lead in the process -- but took a heartbreaking 5-4 loss against Chinese Taipei in extra innings.

In its final Pool C game, South Korea had to beat Australia by at least five runs without giving up more than two runs in order to advance on a tiebreaker. The team did exactly that, winning 7-2 by scoring the crucial seventh run in the top of the ninth inning.

The victory sent South Korea across the Pacific to Miami, but the team wasn't able to build on the momentum against the Dominican Republic.

The bats that produced some timely hits against Australia were silenced in Friday's loss, managing just two hits while striking out 11 times in seven innings against starter Cristopher Sanchez and reliever Albert Abreu. (Yonhap)