“We’ve been doing this since the days of the Muhyung Baseball Stadium.”
It’s the 15th at Gwangju Kia Champions Field. A caravan of coffee arrived at the KIA team entrance on the third base side.
The main character is Yang Hyun-jong. Since joining the Kia organization in the second round (1st overall) of the 2007 rookie draft, Yang has appeared in 478 career games, compiling a 166-111 record with nine shutouts and a 3.84 ERA. All but two of his 166 wins have come as a starter, making him the KBO’s all-time leader in starts. The previous record was held by Song Jin-woo with 163 wins.
He is 7-9 with a 3.99 ERA in 23 games this season and needs three more wins to reach double-digit wins for the ninth consecutive year. The all-time record for consecutive seasons is 10, set by Lee Kang-chul. It’s another milestone for Yang Hyun-jong.
He recently struck out 100 batters for the ninth consecutive year.
There’s no shortage of “great pitchers” to describe Yang, who is making a mark in the history of KBO pitching.
Although he’s now a top-notch pitcher that everyone looks up to, Yang had a “childhood” as well. Despite his breakout years in 2007 and 2008, Yang had a 1-7 record in 79 games over two years.
He started out as a reliever and gradually worked his way up to a starter. There are those who cheered for ‘young Yang Hyun-jong’. In 2009, they gathered under the name of Yang Hyeon-jong, a youngster on the mound.
Fifteen years have passed since they watched and cheered for Yang from the time he was the youngest pitcher in the Muhyung Baseball Stadium.
After two years of quenching his thirst in the first team, Yang showed an even steeper rise. 2009. In 29 games, he went 12-5 with a 3.15 ERA, and in 2010, he became a 10-win pitcher with 16 wins. He didn’t accumulate as many wins in the next two years, but from 2014 to now, he’s been a double-digit winner, solidifying his role as the team’s ace.
Yang has always resisted the idea of fans sending him coffee. He realizes the pressure they put on him, and he’s made sure to let the younger players take center stage.먹튀검증
It wasn’t until the end of the season that coffee arrived in Yang’s name. The fans said, “He set many records this year, and other players received a lot of coffee tea, so we wanted to make sure to send it in his name.”
The tea read, “Yang Hyun-jong, who grew from a jagan on the mound to a big pitcher for Kia. It was a sentence that captured Yang’s growth.
Kia, which is in fourth place, will play a three-game series against the sixth-place Doosan Bears, who are one game behind. The three-game weekend series will be a watershed moment in the race. The Kia players will be able to open the three-game series in good spirits thanks to the coffee tea named after the ‘big pitcher’.