DAEGU (Yonhap) ― He doesn’t throw blazing fastballs, but Yun Sung-hwan had enough in his arsenal for the Samsung Lions, as he cooled off the hot bats of the Nexen Heroes in the Korean Series on Wednesday.
Making his sixth career start in the South Korean baseball championship series, the 33-year-old right-hander tossed seven effective innings, scattering four hits and holding the Heroes to one run, as the Lions beat them 7-1.
The Lions pulled even in the best-of-seven affair, which moves to Nexen’s home, Mokdong Stadium in Seoul, for Game 3 on Friday.
The Heroes entered Wednesday’s Game 2 on a roll. They’d scored 12 runs in the decisive Game 4 against the LG Twins in the previous series.
Then, to open the Korean Series, hard-hitting shortstop Kang Jung-ho hit a two-run homer and drove in three runs, while slumping leadoff man Seo Geon-chang hit a triple.
Lions pitcher Yun Sung-hwan. (Yonhap)
Tasked with keeping the Heroes from going up 2-0 in the series, Yun kept the opposing hitters off balance with relative ease. He sent down 10 of the first 12 batters he faced, before giving up a solo home run to Park Byung-ho with two outs in the fourth inning.
Park, who had been 5 for 6 against Yun with two home runs in the regular season, continued to be the right-hander’s nemesis.
Yet the homer was Yun’s only blemish of the night, as he held the Heroes to just one single in his final 3 1/3 innings.
Yun usually relies on his looping curveballs and sliders, but threw a good dose of fastballs inside early.
The Heroes’ hitters waited for breaking pitches that never came, and were caught off-guard by fastballs that topped out at only 141 kilometers per hour.
Yun threw 100 pitches, 66 of them for strikes.
He struck out six, with four of them of the swinging variety.
With Wednesday’s win, Yun improved to 5-2 in his postseason career, with three of the wins coming in the Korean Series.
Yun earned two of the Lions’ four victories in the 2012 Korean Series, and had a 0.79 ERA in 11 1/3 innings.
Then in the 2013 Korean Series, Yun got the starting nod in Game 1 against the Doosan Bears.
He couldn’t quite duplicate his success from the previous season, and got pounded for six runs on 10 hits in 4 1/3 innings.
Yun made another start in Game 5, but got a no-decision after allowing four runs in 2 1/3 innings.
