‘5th grade’ Yorkish, ‘4th grade’ Buchanan ‘win by decision’
Kiwoom foreign pitcher Eric Yokishi (pictured) won the KBO League’s longest-running foreign pitchers face-to-face.
Yokishi started in the match against Samsung at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on the 20th and led the team to a 6-1 victory with 5 hits, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts and 1 run in 6 innings.
Kiwoom, who missed all of the previous two games during the week with Samsung in three consecutive matches, broke the losing streak with Yokishi’s good pitching and prevented Samsung from winning four consecutive victories.
On this day, Yokishi’s opponent was David Buchanan, a Samsung ace foreign pitcher.
The two have a lot in common. Yokishi and Buchanan are long-lived foreign players representing the league. Yokishi has been wearing a Kiwoom uniform since 2019 and has a relationship with Korean professional baseball, and Buchanan has been active wearing a Samsung uniform since 2020.
It is also the same that he has steadily accumulated double-digit multipliers from his debut season to last year. In the 2021 season, they competed for the most wins. The two pitchers couldn’t distinguish superiority or inferiority at the time. Yokishi tied for the most wins with 16-9 and Buchanan with 16-5.
On this day, Yokishi faced off on the mound with the mission of escaping from a losing streak and Buchanan challenging for a 4-game winning streak.
The match was split once. Both faced major crises, but the impact was different. After being hit with a double by lead hitter Ja-wook Koo in the first inning, Yokishi allowed Lee Won-seok a timely hit in the first out and third base, conceding first. However, he minimized the run by treating the follow-up hitters Kang Min-ho and Oh Jae-il as regular hits.
Buchanan was hit by a triple in the middle right by Kim Hye-seong, the first hitter, and then hit a timely left-handed hit by Lee Yong-gyu, the follow-up hitter, allowing the score to tie right away. Lee Jung-hoo was struck out, but he was shaken again by Lee Hyung-jong’s double, and Edison Russell also walked and faced a bases loaded crisis. Here, a sweeping double from Kim Hwi-jip became a fatal blow.
Yokishi, who received 4 points, kept the mound until the 6th inning and blocked the Samsung batting line. The number of pitches was only 90. He mainly threw two-seam fastballs (44) and curves (28) of up to 147 km, and also mixed changeups (12) and cutters (6) appropriately. 안전놀이터
Buchanan, who had no runs since the first inning, was on the mound until the seventh inning, but after being driven to 2nd and 1st and 2nd bases due to a throwing error by third baseman Lee Won-seok, he was struck by Russell at the right time and scored an additional run, then went on the mound and suffered a yoke of defeat. .
After the game, Yokishi said, “There were crises, but he was able to calmly play the game thanks to his support for scoring in the beginning of the game.”
In Daejeon, foreign starter Raul Alcantara, who returned to Doosan after playing for two seasons in Japan, shone. Doosan overcame Hanwha 5-1 thanks to Alcantara’s 8 innings, 7 innings and 1 run, and Yang Eui-ji’s two-run home run. In resignation, Lotte held KIA 5-3 and decorated 3 consecutive matches during the week as a winning series. In Suwon, SSG beat KT 8-5. In Jamsil, LG defeated NC 9-4 and rose to the top spot alone.