Jang Won-jun, a veteran pitcher for the baseball team Doosan, won his third straight game yesterday.
What’s the secret to his success after years of struggles?
Jang Won-jun’s hot streak was no fluke.
He pitched like a 20-year veteran last week against SSG to snap a three-game winning streak for the NC.
He gave up runners in the first and second innings, but conserved his pitch count by throwing back-to-back shutouts.
He shut down the NC bats with his fastball instead of his changeup.
Threw a season-high six innings, allowing no runs.
Jang Won-jun, who took a whopping 1,844 days to add a win to his 129 career wins, has added two more in the last eight days to move one step closer to ninth place on the all-time wins list with 132 career wins.
[Jang Won-joon/Dusan]
“I think it’s because I’ve been having good results that I’ve been able to keep pitching with more confidence.”
In his first appearance against his brother-in-law, Park Geon-woo, who had attracted a lot of attention, he was able to get the kill.
[Jang Won-jun/Dusan]
“Even if you try not to care, you can’t help but care, and I told (my brother-in-law) not to try to look up to him and just compete, but I think I came out on top anyway.”
His self-proclaimed secret weapon: a two-seam fastball.
In three starts this year, he’s thrown half his pitches just two-seam.
It’s paid off, as he’s generated a lot of ground balls even with a top velocity of 141 mph.
[Jang Won-jun/Dusan]
“Coach Kwon Myung-cheol (second team) recommended throwing two-seam, but since there is a lot of movement, it seems to be inducing a lot of ground balls as it hits the hitters’ bats a little bit.”
Jang Won-jun says he had a lot of worries over the past four seasons, when he didn’t win a single game.
“There were times when I threw two boxes of balls a day, and there were times when I just took a week off and didn’t do anything… In hindsight, I think I was chased a little too much.”스포츠토토
Jang Won-jun faced a never-ending downhill slide from being the best left-handed pitcher in the league.
He’s letting go of all greed and thinking only of the value of each ball.