Reporter Kim Kyung-hyun = Future national ace Eui-ri Lee (KIA Tigers) faced an ordeal.

Lee Eui-ri was proudly named in the final 30 entries for the 2023 WBC baseball team announced on the 4th. It is already the second national team boarding after last year’s Tokyo Olympics.

South Korea, which belongs to Group B, will play the first round of the finals at the Tokyo Dome in Japan from March 9 to 13 with Japan, Australia, China and the Czech Republic.

As all matches in the finals are held at the Tokyo Dome, it is important to understand the stadium. Tokyo Dome is not small at 100m on the left and right and 122m in the center, but it is similar to Samsung Lions Park in the shape of a diamond. In addition, due to the structure, the air pressure must be kept high, which artificially creates an updraft.

Naturally, Tokyo Dome has become a hitter-friendly stadium with good home runs and long hits. The pitching staff’s home run suppression ability is more important than anything else. 메이저놀이터

The problem is that Lee Eui-ri’s bloody home runs are frequent. In 2022, Eui-ri Lee gave up 18 home runs. This is tied for third most in the league. The home run rate per 9 innings (HR/9) is also 1.05, which is the second highest among pitchers who have filled the required innings, and the highest among the national team pitching staff.

At the Tokyo Olympics, he showed an overwhelming pitch by catching 18 strikeouts in 10 innings, but also allowed 2 home runs. Although this is a very small sample, when converted to HR/9, it reaches 1.80. Baek Jeong-hyeon, the pitcher who gave up the most home runs this year, has an HR/9 of 1.59, so you can see the seriousness.

Last year, Eui-ri Lee’s HR/9 was only 0.57. At this time, Eui-ri Lee’s main weapon was the fastball and changeup. This year, the use rate was lowered because the changeup did not listen (24.8% → 9.5%), and the fastball inevitably filled the void (55.0% → 63.6%). had to increase.

The compatibility between Eui-ri Lee and Tokyo Dome is the worst. Due to the nature of short-term battles, the atmosphere can be overturned in one big shot. The fate of Lee Eui-ri and the national team depends on coach Lee Kang-cheol’s solution.