“It’s good to be in my hometown. There were a lot of Lotte (Giants) fans here, and it was encouraging to see. It was my first start in Sajik, and the result is good.”
The first meeting with hometown baseball fans was a strong one. LG Twins’ Son Joo-young’s face was bright.
Son pitched six innings of four-hit ball with one walk and no strikeouts against the Lotte Giants at Sajik Stadium in Busan on Nov. 11, earning his second win of the season in the team’s 2-1 victory.
It was his first start at Sajik since making his professional debut. His first professional start last year (five scoreless innings against Jamsil Lotte on Oct. 10) was also against Lotte. Son Ju-young said, “I think I received the energy of the hometown fans. The mound at Sajik Stadium is high, so it’s nice,” he smiled.
LG manager Yoon Kyung-yeop praised Son as a fifth starter this year, saying, “He has enough potential to become the first native LG starter in the future.”
However, the first season was not easy. In the first game of the season, on March 28 at Samsung Electronics, the team won with a six-inning shutout with strong support from the batting lineup, but instead of winning the next six games in a row, the team accumulated two losses. Even lasting five innings wasn’t easy.
Still, he earned his second quality start of the season (six or more innings of work and three or fewer earned runs) against the Doosan Bears on April 4 with six innings of three-run ball, and solidified his position with his second win of the season against Lotte. “Coach always says good things to me and instills confidence in me,” Son said after the game. Before, if I didn’t throw well once or twice, I would think, ‘Oh, I’m going to the second team. Now I don’t have that anxiety. The coach believes in me,” he said.
“I met with the manager last night at dinner, and he said, ‘You’re starting the fifth inning, so don’t think about the sixth inning, just think about pitching five good innings.’ I’m not really in a position to make any adjustments, I’m a little bit of a late 사설토토 bloomer. The more I pitch, the better I get. Today, I threw really hard in the first inning and it was 143 mph. I’m glad it’s getting better (up to 148).”
It wasn’t just Lotte fans who were thankful. “In the eighth inning, (Kim) Hyun-soo and my other brothers said, ‘Pray,’ and (Yoo) Young-chan pitched a five-out shutout, and Koo Bon-hyuk and Park Dong-won hit RBI singles,” he laughed, “and (Kim) Hyun-soo and my other brothers said, ‘Pray.
This is the first time he’s been in the starting rotation for a full season. “He helped me a lot with the training part,” says Son. They told me, ‘You’re a lot of work, but as long as you’re healthy, you’ll throw for us. I’m really grateful for that,” he emphasized.
“I used to have a really high fastball percentage, but I’ve brought it down to the low 40s with the mobilization lead. My fastball is working better as my changeup is getting counts. I won’t tell you the details, but Kim Jin-sung gave me good energy from today. Thanks to him, I think I’ll be able to pitch better in the future.”