Chow-chan made his first live appearance since joining the Lotte Giants. It was an earlier-than-expected appearance considering that he was expected to make his debut in late June at the earliest.
Chau-chan started the Futures game against the SSG Landers’ second team at Sangdong Baseball Stadium in Gimhae on Tuesday and pitched one scoreless inning, giving up one hit and striking out two.
The right-hander is in his 18th year of professional baseball after making his debut with the Samsung Lions in 2006, and has amassed 112 career wins. He was a key part of the Samsung dynasty’s bullpen and was one of the league’s best left-handed pitchers when he signed a four-year, $11 billion free agent contract with the LG Twins.
He was released by the LG Twins last November after a long history of shoulder injuries and joined Lotte for an annual salary of 50 million won. His last appearance was on September 25 last year, but it was a rushed game during his rehabilitation.
In an interview with this newspaper during spring training, he said, “If I don’t show something meaningful in the field by the end of June, I will retire.” He did. True to his word, he made his debut for the Futures in early June.
Chau-chan hit Kim Jung-min to right field and struck out Choi Yubin. He gave up a single to Choi Jun-woo to left, but struck out Ryu Hyo-seung to end the first inning. He threw 13 pitches. Lotte brought in Choi Young-hwan in the second inning.
Recently, Doosan’s Jang Won-jun made a miraculous comeback and won his second straight start. Lotte will also be without a starting pitcher for the Hangzhou Asian Games, as Park Se-woong and Na Kyun-ahn were both called up at the same time. He doesn’t necessarily need to be a starter, but he has been plagued by injuries for a long time, so even a good showing in the bullpen would be meaningful.
His fastball tops out at 134 km/h. “He is scheduled to pitch in a practice game against Gangneung Youngdong University on the 17th,” Lotte said of Chau-chan’s upcoming schedule.먹튀검증
Lotte head coach Larry Sutton said, “There are stages to everything. “I heard that he did well today,” said Lotte manager Larry Sutton, “but he still has a long way to go to be 100%. We will continue to build up until he is 100 percent.”
“(Assuming he’s 100 percent), we’re going to use him as a bullpen arm. We can use him as a one-pitcher, or we can give him one inning,” he said, emphasizing that “having two left-handed pitchers (Kim Jin-wook and Chau-chan) in the bullpen will be very reliable.”
Meanwhile, the Futures League’s Han Dong-hee continued her hot hitting, going 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI on the day.