Samsung’s foreign ace picks up his second win of the season.
Samsung Lions foreign pitcher Albert Suarez started the fifth game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League against the Lotte Giants at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu on Tuesday.
Suarez has posted six quality starts this season (three earned runs or less in six innings), but he hasn’t exactly been on a roll, going 1-5 with a 4.98 ERA in 10 games.
In particular, on April 4 against the Daejeon Hanwha Eagles, he pitched his worst outing since arriving in Korea. He gave up nine runs on eight hits and three walks in 4.2 innings. He hasn’t won since May 4 against the Daegu Kiwoom Heroes and has lost four straight starts.
It was a clean first inning. After getting Kim Min-seok to fly out to shortstop and Zach Rex to ground out, he gave up a hit to Ahn Chi-hong but got Yoon Dong-hee to ground out to end the first.
The second inning started well. He walked Go Seung-min and Jung-hoon to load the bases with two outs, but back-to-back singles by Park Seung-wook and Yoo Kang-nam put runners on first and third, and he gave up a single to Kim Min-soo. Three straight hits allowed. After getting Kim Min-seok to strike out swinging, the second inning ended. 스포츠토토
The third inning started well as Rex flied out to center field, but Ahn Chi-hong doubled and Yoon Dong-hee singled to put runners on first and third. Pitching coach Jeong Hyun-wook came in to take some pressure off Suarez and got Ko Seung-min and Jung Hoon to fly out to end the inning.
The fourth inning was a clean three-hit shutout, but the fifth inning was a tough one. A leadoff single by Kim Min-seok, a walk to Rex, and a sacrifice bunt by Ahn Chi-hong put runners on first and second. Yoon Dong-hee’s sacrifice fly extended the lead. By the fifth inning, he had thrown nearly 100 pitches. He had some trouble managing his pitch count.
With the bases loaded and a 5-2 lead, he took the mound in the sixth inning, but couldn’t get out of the inning cleanly. Jung Hoon singled to shortstop, but Park Seung-wook singled and went to second when Yoo Kang-nam grounded out. With two runners on base and one out, the inning was over, but they couldn’t get a single out. Kim Min-soo singled to center field to extend the lead to three.
That was it. Suarez went down. Woo Kyu-min came in for him and struck out Kim Min-seok to end the sixth inning. Suarez’s run total didn’t go up.