Brandon Waddell (Doosan Bears) was shaken. But there are no flaws. This is thanks to the ‘Magu’ slider dancing and completing the iron wall.
Brandon started the regular season match against the Lotte Giants in the 2023 KBO League regular season held at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on the 25th and pitched 5 innings, 5 hits, 1 walk, 1 walk, 9 strikeouts, and no runs. He failed to digest long innings as his pitching was shaking, but whenever runners piled up, he took out his slider, his ‘new weapon’ and ‘harness’, and escaped. He also received 4 assists from the other line and went down the mound after pitching the 6th inning, which required a 3-win season, leading 4-0.
Brandon, who played as a substitute for Doosan last year, returned to the KBO League in June after playing in Taiwanese professional baseball. Initially, Doosan re-recruited last year, thinking that Brandon’s image was enough. His strikeout was a resource that allowed him to record at least 5 innings and 3 runs or less in every game.
However, the new weapon that he gained through training last winter changed him 180 degrees. Last year, he induced in-play hits instead of miss swings with a slider with a small angle, but this year, he is actively inducing hitters to miss swings with a large, slow slider.
His slider power was also outstanding in the game on the 25th. My condition on the day was not good. He had just 56 strikes while throwing a total of 95 pitches. He was often counted in each at-bat, and unlike Brandon, who had lightly played more than 6 innings before, he went through every inning with difficulty.
But the result was flawless. The reason was simple. In every crisis, the slider did its part. After an error by shortstop in the first inning, Brandon struck out the follow-up batter Jeon Jun-woo with a cutter, and the strikeout show started in earnest from the second inning.
On the mound in the second inning, Brandon allowed lead hitter An Chi-hong to double first, and Han Dong-hee’s true base put him in a crisis with one out and third base. I shouldn’t have given the ball in play itself, but the slider did it. Brandon got the second out count by throwing 4 sliders (1 pitch cutter) out of 5 pitches against Noh Jin-hyeok. Then, he gave Shin Yun-hoo a four-ball, but Kim Min-seok struck out again with a vain swing and escaped from the crisis. This time, the slider was only one ball, but it served as the ‘key’ that earned a strike from a 2-ball, 1-strike unfavorable count.
Brandon, who escaped the crisis with two hits in the third inning and struck out on the last count, added three strikeouts only in the fourth inning. Brandon, who gave lead hitter Han Dong-hee a left-handed hit, added a looking strikeout with a slider that hit the outside of the lefty batter after a full count against Noh Jin-hyeok, who struck out earlier. After that, Shin Yun-hoo struck out on a swing after 3 pitches and Kim Min-seok 4 pitches and turned around. All of them were sliders.
Brandon, who was on the mound again in the 5th inning, cooked Lotte’s batting line with the slider again. He was in danger with multiple on-base (1 hit, 1 walk) like the previous innings, but he had no worries because he had a slider. Brandon, who struck out Lotte’s new foreign hitter Nico Gudrum with a cutter, also struck out Yoo Kang-nam with a slider. In the end, Lotte, who gave the count in vain, had to end the opportunity when An Chi-hong’s right-handed hit was caught by José Rojas’ Hobi in the situation of 2 out 1 and 2 base.먹튀검증
Although it is 5 innings, it has a chance to win 3 times in the season with strong scoring support. Doosan’s line-up scored first with Heo Gyeong-min’s timely double in the third inning, and Kim Jae-hwan’s two-run gun gave him three points first. Then, at the end of the 5th inning, just before Brandon went down the mound, he attacked Lotte starter Na Kyun-an and bullpen Jin Seung-hyun and added two points to complete a comfortable 6-0 lead. Brandon, who received plenty of points, passed the mound to Lee Young-ha in the 6th inning to finish the mound. His ERA, which was 1.04 before starting, fell to 0.87 with no runs on this day. Although it is a record for a short period of time, it is a report card that would not be awkward to call ‘Bdongyeol’.
