“Sunny” Kim Sun-woo’s Second Win

“Sunny” Kim Sun-woo (27, Montreal Expos) wins his second victory of the year.

On the 8th, as the starting pitcher in a home game with the Saint Louis Cardinals, Kim allowed only 1 run with 7 hits and 4 walks in 6 innings and pitched his team to victory by a score of 4 to 2. The win was his second victory since winning a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on the 3rd. Among Korean major league pitchers, Kim currently holds the best record.

Kim has not pitched enough innings to qualify for league leader status, but over 29 innings, his ERA is only 1.24, making him number one in his class. To date, among players who have the requisite number of 31 innings to qualify, Al Leiter of the New York Mets is the league ERA leader with 1.53.

During the game against the Cardinals, Kim would allow a man to make it to base every inning, but at each crisis point, he would force batters into hitting into double plays (2) and strikeouts (4) to overcome the crisis.

Out of 101 pitches, he threw only 58 strikes without employing his powerful fastball and knuckleball.

Chang Jeon jeon@donga.com