900 million’ Jang Jae-young (Kiwoom Heroes) is showing his talent in Geelong Korea, the Australian professional baseball team. He succeeded in getting his first win with a ‘reverse fight’ of 8 innings and 2 runs.
Jang Jae-young started in the 2022-2023 Australian Professional Baseball (ABL) home match against the Melbourne Aces held at the Geelong Baseball Center in Australia on the 18th (Korean time), throwing 115 pitches in 8 innings, 5 hits (2 homers), 10 strikeouts and 2 runs. (2 earned run) and got his first victory in a reverse fight.
Jang Jae-young started his professional career after receiving the first nomination from Kiwoom Heroes in the 2021 rookie draft. Jang Jae-young, who throws a fast ball that easily crosses 150 km/h, received a lot of expectations to the point of receiving a whopping 900 million won for the down payment alone. However, his performance in his last two years at Kiwoom has not been very satisfactory.
After wearing the Kiwoom uniform, Jang Jae-young pitched in 33 games (31⅔ innings) for two seasons, recording an average ERA of 8.53 with one loss. Due to his jagged pitch, he stayed longer in the second team than in the first team. And he fell short of expectations with 2 wins, 7 losses, 2 holds and an ERA of 6.42 in 29 games (74⅓ innings) in the 2nd team.
Kiwoom decided to dispatch Geelong Korea so that Jang Jae-young, who had invested ‘900 million won’, could gain more experience. And he’s blossoming his talents in Australia. Jang Jae-young showed a quality start pitch that had never been recorded in the KBO league, and he scored his first victory by marking 2 runs in 8 innings that day.
Jang Jae-young broke off a clean start by turning Melbourne’s top batting line into a tripartite in the first inning. With no runners in the second inning, Jaeyoung Jang was attacked by Jacob Robson with a high fastball, allowed a home run over the middle wall, and a solo home run to the left in the third inning, scoring two runs.
He gave up 2 points due to an error attack, but Jang Jae-young was not shaken. Jang Jae-young recorded a three-way strike against Melbourne’s center line in the 4th inning, and blocked the 5th to 7th innings with no runs. And Jang Jae-young stood on the mound in the 8th inning. After striking out lead hitter Matt O’Neill, Jang Jae-young swayed briefly as he gave a hit ball to follow-up hitter Aaron Whitefield. However, after setting up Robbie Glenn Dinning as a shortstop fly ball, he threw a falling slider against Jake Skoll, striking out with a swing and striking out.
The batting line also responded to Jang Jae-young’s counterattack. Geelong opened fire in the third inning when lead batter Park Jung-hyun went to base with an infield hit, and recovered one point. And in the 4th inning, Song Chan-eui, Ha Jae-hoon, and Park Ju-hong pulled out three consecutive hits, and Oh Jang-han got a ball that fit the body and balanced the score at 2-2. 토토
Geelong took the lead in the bottom of the 6th inning when lead batter Ha Jae-hoon hit a left-handed solo home run that threw off the balance. And at first base, which was made safe by Park Ju-hong’s hit, pinch hitter Yoo Sang-bin exploded a two-run gun that ran away, widening the score to 5-2 and seizing the victory. And in the ninth inning, Seo Jun-won, following Jae-young Jang, got on the mound and blocked one inning with one run, and Geelong won 5-3.