“They’re playing too well”

The Hanwha Eagles’ recent form has been scary. Starting with a sweep of the KIA Tigers on March 21, Hanwha went on a winning streak, taking down the NC Dinos and KT Wiz before sweeping two games of a three-game weekend series against the Samsung Lions to extend their winning streak to eight games, the longest since June 4-14, 2005, a whopping 18 years and 6593 days.

Riding the wave, Hanwha challenged Naechin Kim for a ninth straight win, but fell 1-2 at Samsung Electronics on Feb. 2. Hanwha scored one run on four hits and two walks in six innings against Samsung’s “ace” Won Tae-in, but were stymied by the Samsung bullpen of Yang Chang-seop (1 inning), Lee Seung-hyun (1 inning), and Oh Seung-hwan (1 inning).

Before the game against Lotte on April 4, Choi Won-ho said, “It was disappointing in terms of the score, but there wasn’t much to complain about in terms of the content. I felt lucky when Peña saved the bases loaded, and (Lee) Sun and Park Sang-won did a good job of stopping them, but I think we were a little unlucky at the end of the game,” Choi said.

“To be lucky, (Chae) Eun-sung’s balls had to go over or under, and even Moon Hyun-bin’s balls in the ninth inning had to dive and fall backwards, but everything was caught, so we didn’t get lucky in that part,” he said, adding, “Until then, there was nothing like this. We weren’t able to capitalize on Pil Seung-jo’s balls, and we were tied to Won Tae-in. It was unfortunate, but it was a very clean game,” he admitted.

“I didn’t have a meeting with the players, just a coaching staff meeting after the game,” Choi said. I said, ‘Thank you for the eight-game winning streak, and let’s prepare well from Tuesday (4). The players played so well, there was no meeting. In fact, too many meetings can be counterproductive,” he smiled.

Since taking over from Carlos Suvero, Choi has held only two team meetings. “I had a meeting when I first came up and then when we lost the first three games in a row,” he said. “I would do it when I did something that would be criticized by anyone, but the players are doing so well right now,” he said.

Without Jang Min-jae and Kim Min-woo, who have been in the starting rotation since the beginning of the season, what has been the driving force behind Hanwha’s eight-game winning streak? “The 1-3 starters pitched really well, and if you look back at our winning streak, we scored more than four runs in all but one game, which was a 1-0 win, and that was mainly because we scored early in the game, so the starters were able to pitch comfortably,” he said.

“And because the three starters were able to eat up some innings, we were able to use a lot of our bullpen when we went to the fourth, so it was a good combination, and I think we got a little bit more momentum with the 1-0 win in the second game of the eight-game series. We’ve had some close games, ties, and blowouts in the last inning, so being able to hold off those things gave the players a lot of confidence,” he said.먹튀검증

Choi Won-ho said, “When we lost three games in a row, the content of the meeting was that we knew we were working hard and we knew we were good, but the result was a loss, so we were worried that the players might think, ‘I can’t do it. There’s no one who doesn’t want to hit, no one who doesn’t want to throw.” “If you’re obsessed with the result, you’re going to shake hands. We’re just going to stick to the process,” he emphasized.