Reliving a 40.50 ERA nightmare from three years ago, a 20-inning scoreless humiliation…the myth of the 8 percent monthly win rate, and the first reef.

A replacement starter was pulled after giving up six runs in three innings. The bats failed to score a single run in 20 innings against the ninth-ranked team. KT, which had an 8 percent monthly winning percentage last month, is in trouble.

KT’s Kim Min-soo took the loss in the 15th game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League against Kiwoom at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on Wednesday, giving up six runs (five earned) on six hits with two walks and three strikeouts in three innings.

The injury to Uhm Sang-baek prompted KT to turn to first-round pick Kim Min-soo, who had a 6.28 ERA in 12 games with no wins or losses, to take the mound on August 18 after a long layoff in relief against Daejeon Hanwha, where he gave up two runs in 1⅔ innings.

It was Kim’s first start in about three years and three months since June 10, 2020, against Suwon KIA, before he joined the Sangsang. He had bitter memories of being the losing pitcher in that game, giving up eight runs (six earned) in 1⅓ innings with an ERA of 40.50. When we met before the game, manager Lee Kang-cheol said, “Kim had a long rest, but he was in good shape. If he pitches well, he will keep going. He’s been pitching better lately,” Lee said, but the nightmare from three years ago came back to haunt him.

Until the second inning, he was uncharacteristically calm. After a 10-pitch triple in the first, he gave up a single to Song Sung-moon to lead off the second, but he struck out Lee Joo-hyung, who has been hitting well lately, and Kim Hwi-jip to end the inning.

The nightmare started in the third inning. Lim Byung-wook led off with a double to center field. Kim then got Kim Soo-hwan to fly out to right and Kim Xiang to strike out swinging, but an infield single by Kim Tae-jin and a walk to Kim Hye-sung loaded the bases for a two-run double off Ronnie Dawson.메이저사이트

The fourth inning started with a leadoff double by Lee Ju-hyung, then a throwing error by third baseman Hwang Jae-gyun put runners on first and third with no outs. Kim gave up a walk to Kim Soo-hwan before being replaced by Choi Jo-hyun to end the game prematurely. Kim threw 57 pitches. Jo gave up a bases-loaded double to Kim Xiang and then a two-run single to Kim, putting both runners on base.

Kim wasn’t the only one to blame. A cold batting lineup also compounded the team’s woes. The lineup of Kim Min-hyuk, Bae Jeong-dae, Anthony Alford, Park Byung-ho, Hwang Jae-gyun, Oh Yoon-seok, Park Kyung-soo, Shin Bon-ki, and Kang Hyun-woo were held to one hit and one walk in 6⅔ innings against Kiwoom starter Ariel Furado. After Hurado went down, Park Byung-ho and Ahn Chi-young led off with back-to-back singles, but Oh Yoon-seok flied out to right field.

KT suffered its second consecutive shutout following an 0-3 loss the day before. It’s been 20 consecutive innings without scoring a run, starting in the eighth inning against Gochuk Kiwoom on the first day of September. Before the game, Lee said, “If you look at our recent games, we rarely won because we hit well. A lot of our wins have been due to errors. We’re not hitting very well right now,” he said before the game, which ended in a sweep by ninth-ranked Kiwoom amid a batting slump.

It was the first crisis for KT, which had climbed to second place in August with a dominant 19-4 record (.826 winning percentage).