Tampa Bay Korean Pitcher Stepped Down in the Second Inning

Seo Jae-ung (30, Tampa Bay) delivered his worst pitches while Ryu Je-guk (24, Tampa Bay) and Chu Shin-soo (25, Cleveland) smiled as they had good pitching days.

On April 27, Seo was the starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ road game against the L.A. Angels at Angel Stadium of Anaheim , but stepped down after throwing one and a third innings that allowed seven hits, including one home-run, and two walks. Tampa Bay lost to the L.A. Angels (final score of 11-3), and Seo had to take his second defeat (one win) with his EPA rising to 9.51.

This is Seo’s first step-down before finishing two innings since hurling 0-8 to the N.Y. Yankees during one and two-thirds innings on September 26, 2006.

He experienced problems with his ball control. After allowing a walk to Orlando Cabrera in the first inning, Seo threw a 142 km fastball to Vladimir Guerrero, who then hit a two-run homerun. He allowed five hits and five runs during the first inning. After delivering one hit and one walk in the second inning, Seo was replaced by Gary Glover. Glover allowed a sacrifice fly for third-base runner Gary Matthews to make Seo’s lost runs amount to six.

However, Ryu Je-guk was different. He stepped on the mound in the fifth inning to allow just one hit and no runs for four innings. He continued to strike out batters every inning except for one hit by Shea Hillenbrand in the seventh inning.

At an interview with MLB.com, Tampa Bay manager Joe Madden said, “Seo’s balls were not sharp today, and Ryu’s pitching was very impressive.”

Chu Shin-soo of the Cleveland Indians made multi-hits (more than two hits a game) to help his team defeat the Texas Rangers 9-4. With two hits in a row for two days, Chu pulled up his batting average from 0.333 to 0.385.

Sammy Sosa (39, Texas) hit two homers in the sixth and eighth innings to reach a total of 594 homeruns in his career while also setting a record of hitting homeruns at 44 Major League stadiums.

beetlez@donga.com