“I was feeling the ball so good until the fourth inning that I realized it wasn’t going to work today.”
Doosan Bears pitcher Raul Alcantara suffered his first loss in a month. Alcantara took the loss on July 27 against the SSG Landers in Jamsil, giving up seven runs on 10 hits (one home run) in 5 1/3 innings while striking out two.안전놀이터
He was perfect until the fourth inning. He completely shut down SSG’s bats, and Doosan’s bats responded with three runs to take a 3-0 lead. But in the fifth inning, things went south. After giving up a leadoff single to Guillermo Heredia in the top of the fifth, Choi gave up a two-run homer to the next batter, Choi Joo-hwan. Choi was hit by a 150-kilometer fastball two pitches from 1B, and he pulled it for a two-run homer over the right field wall.
Back-to-back runs followed for Alcantara. With two outs, Kim Min-sik hit another infield single to tie the game at 3-3. In the sixth inning, he gave up three consecutive singles with one out, followed by back-to-back RBI singles to Choi Joo-hwan and Han Yoo-seom. The deficit quickly grew to seven runs before the Doosan bench pulled Alcantara with one out in the sixth.
After the fourth and fifth innings, Alcantara was like a different pitcher. Doosan manager Lee Seung-yeop said, “He was so perfect in the fourth inning that I thought, ‘He’s going to be good today,’ but the ball suddenly got high. In the fifth, he suddenly lost his control, and after the home run by Choi Joo-hwan, he was too shaky. The pitch mix suddenly changed and there were too many changeups,” he lamented.
SSG coach Kim Won-hyung also found it difficult until the fourth inning. “The Alcantara ball was so good yesterday that I didn’t think it would work. Looking at the pitch count, it looked like he was going to pitch until the seventh inning, so I thought, ‘We’re going to have a hard time today,’ but when Joo-hwan hit a home run, the tide suddenly changed,” he said with a smile.
Alcantara’s collapse left Doosan with a 3-14 deficit. It was all Doosan until the fourth inning, but after that, the game took a 180-degree turn. It was a shame that the ‘ace’ struggled so much.