Cardinals’ Kim Kwang-hyun finishes out a victory against Royals

Kim Kwang-hyun of the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB) took the mound in the first half of the ninth inning with the score of 6-3 over the Kansas City Royals and finished the practice game with three strikeouts in a home game of the MLB summer league held on Thursday (local time) at Busch Stadium in Missouri.

St. Louis Cardinals will begin the regular season schedule with an away game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday, which meant the only game for Kim Kwang-hyun who was chosen as the closing pitcher for the team on Tuesday to test his form, was the one against the Kansas City Royals.

What’s worth mentioning is that two out of three strikeouts were “looking strikeouts” with fastballs. This proves that Kim’s control of fastballs is worthy of a closing pitcher of MLB. Kim pitched 16 balls today, 10 out of which were strikes and the fastest ball speed of which was 151 kilometers per hour.

The South Korean pitcher threw fastballs against Franchy Cordero and Nick Heath – his first and second batter of the day – on Thursday to earn the third strike decision. Both of them are left-handed batters. Kim threw a slider with a speed of 135 kilometers per hour against his third right-handed batter, Bobby Witt Jr., with a full count, causing Bobby Witt Jr. to swing and miss.

“Kim earned strikeouts from both left-handed and right-handed batters,” Baseball manager of the St. Louis Cardinals Mike Shildt said after the game. “Kim completely flummoxed the batters and proved why he deserves to be a closing pitcher.”


Kyu-In Hwang kini@donga.com