The first 100 innings in 11 years as a professional → Ahn Woo-jin filled the gap, Ha Young-min said, "If the 2025 season comes soon... I'm looking forward to it, too."

The first 100 innings in 11 years as a professional → Ahn Woo-jin filled the gap, Ha Young-min said, "If the 2025 season comes soon... I'm looking forward to it, too."

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Ha Young-min (29, Kiwoom Heroes), who received the spotlight 11 years after his professional debut, looked forward to the opening of the 2025 season.
Ha Young-min recently participated in the "2024 Kiwoom Heroes Year-end Charity Event" held at a cafe in Magok-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, and told Star News, "It was a satisfactory season. I hope next season comes sooner. I'm motivated a lot and I want to play baseball faster, but this is the first time I've seen such an offseason," he said.

Even though Kiwoom is the lowest-ranked team this year, it has shown its potential that cannot be ignored, winning 21 out of 48 games against the first to third-place teams. The reason was a solid first to third starters supported by Ha Young-min along with Ariel Furado (26) and Enmanuel de Heysus (26), who were called the league's best one-two punch.

In particular, Ha Young-min displayed stellar performance. During the regular season, Ha had the best season since his debut as a pro in 2014 with nine wins and eight losses and an ERA of 4.37 and 101 strikeouts in 150 ⅓ innings. It was the first time that he had more than 100 strikeouts in a single season since his debut. In terms of wins and innings alone, he filled the gap of ace Ahn Woo-jin (25) with nine wins and seven losses and an ERA of 2.39 in 24 games (150 ⅔ innings) last year.

He has become a wary pitcher even in opposing teams. Manager Yeom Kyung-yeop of the LG Twins, who has been inferior to Kiwoom with 6 wins and 10 losses this year, once said, "It's not easy if you get caught in the turn of Hurado, Heysus or Ha Young-min." Ha Young-min said, "To be honest, it was fun. I met Yeom Kyung-yeop at Jamsil Baseball Stadium during the season, and he jokingly said, "Throw it lightly, why do you throw it with all your might when you play with us?" I thought I was that good at starting the game, but I was grateful."

After graduating from Gwangju Soochang Elementary School, Jinheung Middle School, and Jinheung High School, it was the first spotlight and check since joining Nexen (currently Kiwoom) as the fourth-ranked player in the second round of the KBO Rookie Draft in 2014. He struggled for a long time, with only 5 wins, 3 losses and 2 holds and an ERA of 3.43 in 41 games in 2022 before this year.
Ha Young-min said, "I'm glad that it went well now. It's not that we haven't tried for the past 10 years, including Song Seong-moon this year. Of course, I wanted to play baseball well, and I tried, but there were invisible injuries, and I didn't follow them as well as I felt. I'm more proud and grateful for this year's achievements because I had a hard time."

He turned the tables 11 years after his debut thanks to Kiwoom's first-team pitching coach Lee Seung-ho. Originally, Ha Young-min used to use four-seam fastballs, sliders and curves. However, he has been able to overcome difficulties facing left-handed hitters by wearing a fork (0.1 percent base rate → 22.3 percent) this year. By mixing balls with pitchcoms and throwing balls at fast tempo, he also robbed batters of their timing. As a result, he allowed only five homers, reducing the number of games in which he allowed multiple runs.

Ha Young-min explained, "It helped a lot to wear a fork. As the existing change-up was too fast, I asked coach Lee Seung-ho for advice. The fork grip that the coach threw when he was active was perfect for me and I started throwing it after that."

"Coach Lee Seung-ho didn't just tell me the grip, but he also told me in what situations to use the fork and how to catch it, which made it more convenient for me. Thanks to this, I was originally really weak against left-handed hitters, but it became easier to deal with left-handed hitters by throwing a fork," he added.

Unfortunately, his 10th win in this season gave him a strong motivation for next year. After winning his ninth game against the Lotte Giants on Aug. 17, Ha failed to secure a win for six games. It was his 120th inning.
Ha Young-min said, "I felt a little bit of pain in the 120-130 innings. It hurt a little bit where it didn't hurt. However, it is possible because it is the first full time for the starting pitcher. I already started exercising for next year because I felt so bad about these things this year," adding, "The reason I failed to win 10 games is because I couldn't throw the ball well. Fielders' errors can be sufficient, and I should have thrown well. Rather, I couldn't win 10 games this year, which made me realize the earnestness of winning one game, and it was a great motivation."

I've had the best season in my career, but I'm still not satisfied. Ha Young-min wants to prove that this year's performance was not a coincidence by taking the same routine and training as this year. "I will keep the training as it is. 바카라사이트 I want to have confidence in what I have shown this year. I plan to make small changes as well. For example, I didn't use a fork for right-handed hitters this year and didn't throw a cutter for left-handed hitters, but I'm planning to expand the scope of my use next year," Ha said. "I have high expectations for myself. I hope the 2025 season comes soon. I have only one goal for next year. I am going to be better than this year. If I pass 150 innings, I will be able to win 12-13 games, beating 10 wins. Now my goal is to continue surpassing this year's record," Ha said.