Professional baseball Kiwoom Heroes Ha Young-min (30) was struck down by a strong pitch, but he led his team to escape three consecutive losses with a surprising pitch.메이저놀이터
Ha Young-min started the game against the NC Dinos in the "2025 Shinhan Bank SOL Bank KBO League" at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on the 4th and won six innings with three hits, three walks and seven strikeouts.
In the top of the first inning, Ha Young-min, who was on the verge of being hit by leadoff hitter Park Min-woo and walk by Kim Joo-won, struck out Son Ah-seop and Matt Davidson. Park handled the game with a ground ball to shortstop, and overcame the crisis without allowing a run. In the second inning, he allowed three runs to complete the game.
Ha Young-min struck out Kim Hui-jip, the leadoff batter, in the third inning. Park's hit was then deflected off his right shin, but Oh Sun-jin, the third baseman, calmly connected it to an out.
However, Ha Young-min immediately collapsed, complaining of severe pain. The fallen Ha Young-min was not able to get up for a while, and fans lamented about Ha Young-min as the ambulance arrived at the Gocheok Dome. However, fortunately, Ha Young-min overcame the pain and got up and resumed pitching. The fans applauded to encourage Ha Young-min. Ha Young-min caught Kim Joo-won with a fly ball to right field, creating another three-out inning.
Ha Young-min, who blocked the third and fourth innings with three outs in succession, had a hit by leadoff hitter Kwon Hee-dong in the fifth inning, stopping his streak of 12 consecutive hitters. With one out and runners on the second base, which led to Do Tae-hoon's sacrifice bunt, he caught Kim Hyung-joon with a fly ball to center field. He allowed a walk to Kim Hui-jip with two outs and runners on the third base, and was on the verge of a crisis with two outs and runners on the first and third bases, but managed to escape the crisis by striking out Park Min-woo.
Ha faced another crisis in the sixth inning. He allowed a double to Davidson with two outs, and Park walked. With runners on the first and second bases with one out, Ha Young-min struck out Kwon Hee-dong, preventing the crisis by himself again. After blocking six innings, Ha Young-min passed the mound to Won Jong-hyun in the seventh inning with Kiwoom leading 1-0, and finished the day's pitching. Kiwoom won 5-1 and escaped its second straight loss. Ha Young-min earned his second win of the season.
With 95 pitches, Ha Young-min used cutter (40 pitches), fork (27), fastball (25 pitches), and curveball (3 pitches). The maximum speed of fastball was 147 kilometers per hour and the maximum speed of cutter was 141 kilometers. The strike rate was not that high at 57.9 percent. After carefully competing with the batter, Ha Young-min struck out with a cutter every time he faced a crisis, showing off his outstanding strikeout ability.
Ha Young-min said in an interview after the game, "I feel good to be able to break the losing streak. A lot of fans came and cheered for me. Also, I feel good that I threw well in response to the support."
As for the situation of being hit by the ball in the third inning, Ha Young-min said, "I'm okay now. I think I got better soon because I got a lot of hits," smiling. "At first, it hurt so much. I couldn't even get up. I was going to lie down and get up after being hit by the ball, but the trainer told me to get up slowly. I was about to get up, but he said, 'Rest more. Lie down. Lie down.'
"I kept feeling weak. But I didn't want to pay that much attention," Ha said. "I focused on throwing. I only thought about one thing today. I felt like 'let's not give a point' when I threw the ball with that mindset, and I was able to gain strength."
Ha Young-min, who escaped the crisis by striking out Park with runners on the first and third bases with two outs in the fifth inning, said, "It's all thanks to ABS. I threw the ball in a low light, but the ball was caught narrowly. I think I was lucky enough to go there."