Discussions
The fact that he wanted to throw more after 7 innings
"I was hoping for something like this".
Kia Tigers foreign-born pitcher James Nail had another ace performance. He started the game against the NC Dinos of the 2024 KBO Baseball World Series at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field on Tuesday and pitched seven solid innings. He allowed one run on four hits and one walk while striking out five.
Park was hit by a pitch in the first inning. He gave up a leadoff double and a stolen base. He struck out Kwon Hee-dong but gave up a run on Son As-seob's misplayed grounder to the catcher, but that was the first and last run he allowed. 3 In the bottom of the first, Kim Joo-won hit a double to right-center field that scored Park Min-woo. Kwon Hee-dong followed with a single up the middle, but Son induced a grounder to first base and Davidson grounded out to shortstop.
A two-seam and a sweeper later, Young got out of the seventh inning without further incident. He threw 84 pitches to get through seven innings. He shut down the NC bats with his fastball (30), sweeper (31), cutter (11), fastball and changeup, all of which touched 152 mph. With the win, he improved to 4-0 on the season and lowered his ERA to 1.14. It was his fourth quality start and second QS+. It was an inning-eating, game-winning ace.
The offense exploded after the ace got the final out. They scored five runs in the fifth inning, including a three-run homer by Lee Woo-sung, and added three more in the seventh inning, including a two-run double by Choi Hyung-woo. It was the perfect break for the bullpen, which had been a bit tired this week due to frequent appearances. It was the best gift for the manager.
"This is what you want from a foreign pitcher," said Lee, who applauded Nail's seven innings of work, holding the opposition to just one run and giving the bullpen a much-needed break.
"It was a tough game early on," Nail said. They had good hitters and they were making a lot of cuts, so it was a long game. We were able to adjust quickly and get into the count quickly. We hit a lot of ground balls and our defense helped us get some long innings. The bats came through with some big innings, which made it easier for me to pitch."
"I was aware of the no-strikeout innings record. It's a record that will be broken at some point, but I was wondering how long it would last. I wasn't counting how many innings, because in the (third) inning I gave up a hit by pitch and didn't have my rhythm with the bases loaded. It was a tight situation, so I was trying to minimize the runs, and I was able to make a good throw on the catcher's sign to get out of the inning."
"I had a few pitches to spare, but it's still early in the season and I threw a lot last week (two starts, over 100 pitches), so I got greedy, but that's okay. The bullpen is good, so I came off the mound trusting them to throw well," he said. The fact that he wanted to throw more was something the manager had to love about his foreign ace.