Now, the foreign pitching duo has been perfectly formed.

While Hanwha re-signed Felix Pena this season, they signed Birch Smith for a total of 1 million dollars.

The expectations for Smith were high. For the past two years, in a symbolic sense, a domestic pitcher has been promoted as the starting pitcher for the opening game, but this year Smith cut the tape for the first time.

Contrary to his expectations, his first start turned out to be a nightmare. After pitching 2⅔ innings, Smith complained of shoulder pain and eventually gave up. His debut match became a farewell stage. Smith could no longer step on the mound in the KBO League.

In place of Smith, Ricardo Sanchez was recruited as a new foreign pitcher. Hanwha said, “In addition to a fastball in the second half of 140km, he uses two-seam, curve, slider, and changeup. Through an aggressive pitching pattern, stable innings will be possible.”

From the first pitch, Sanchez lived up to Hanwha’s expectations. Sanchez, who made his KBO League debut against the Samsung Lions on the 11th, recorded 2 hits, 1 walk, 1 strikeout and no run in 4 innings with 53 balls.

For the second mound, he set about 70 pitches and climbed the mound. Sanchez’s aggressive pitching shone. A mixture of sliders (17), curves (8), and changeups (7), including four shims of up to 151 km, quickly turned Lotte hitters.

After blocking the first inning with a tripartite offense, the second inning was conceded. Leading batter An Chi-hong got a hit, and Jeon Jun-woo was dealt with a fly ball, but Yoo Kang-nam allowed a double at the right time. Afterwards, Kim Min-soo and Shin Yun-hoo were caught with strikeouts and floating balls.

He was hit by lead batter Lee Hak-joo in the 3rd inning, but he sighed as he double-killed Yoon Dong-hee. He finished the inning with three batters while handling a ground ball to Ahn Kwon-soo.

Sanchez, who blocked the 4th inning with a tripartite offense, got a hit ball after 2 outs in the 5th inning, but he played his role by striking out the follow-up Lee Hak-joo.

71 balls thrown up to the 5th inning.

Sanchez went down the mound without a win or loss requirement as the other line provided only one point.

With Sanchez’s strong pitching, Hanwha can expect a ‘one-two punch’ as ​​a foreigner duo.

While Pena was sluggish with an average ERA of 5.48 with 1 win and 3 losses in 5 games during the month of April, it is cruising with an ERA of 1.89 with 2 wins and no losses in 3 games in May. In the match against Lotte on the 16th, he recorded 1 run in 6 innings and continued the march of quality starts in 3 consecutive games (6 or more starting innings and 3 earned runs or less).스포츠토토

Sanchez plans to increase his pitch count to 85 in his next appearance. With good pitching in limited pitching for two consecutive games, Hanwha began to erase the painful memories caused by Smith little by little.