Homegrown ace delivers strong start for Lions in title-clinching game

By Yoo Jee-ho

DAEGU, Nov. 8 (Yonhap) -- Won Tae-in has spent his entire eight-year career in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) pitching for his hometown team, the Samsung Lions. The 26-year-old native of Daegu, some 230 kilometers southeast of Seoul, grew up rooting for the club, and on Sunday, he lived out his childhood dream.

He was the winning pitcher in the Lions' Korean Series-clinching game in Daegu, as he threw five innings of one-run ball in the Lions' 12-1 win over the KT Wiz in Game 5.

He allowed four hits and struck out five batters in a tidy outing, and got plenty of run support from the explosive Lions lineup.

The only run against Won was scored via a sacrifice fly in the third inning at Daegu Samsung Lions Park. He pitched into his only real jam in the top fifth, giving up a single and a walk with one out to put two runners aboard.

The Lions were up 3-1 at the time but the Wiz were showing some life. But Won got out of his own mess by striking out Jang Jin-hyuk and retiring Kim Hyun-soo on a harmless groundball to second baseman Ryu Ji-hyuk.

Won is a careerlong starter but was thrust into the bullpen role for this postseason, as the Lions' All-Star closer Kim Jae-yoon was sidelined in October due to an upper body injury. Manager Park Jin-man wanted Won to handle multiple innings in high-leverage situations and even close games where necessary.

But for the Korean Series, after one of the starters, Choi Won-tae, struggled in Game 2, Park decided to put Won back in the rotation for a later game of the best-of-seven series. That outing came Sunday and Won rose to the occasion.

"Honestly, pitching out of the bullpen was really hard, and even today, I felt like I was pitching with a sandbag attached to my arm," Won said. "But I was just trying to throw as many strikes as possible. I was just looking at my catcher's mitt and trying to make it through five innings."

Won apologized to fans for being late on his promise to give them a championship.

"It has taken us a long time but we are finally here," Won said, beaming. "I have wanted to win a title for such a long time. I was envious of a lot of my friends in this league and I think there will now be someone who will feel the same toward me. I hope this is the start of our dynasty."

Won is a free agent this winter. He has reportedly drawn interest from major league clubs, but he is also coming off his worst campaign in six years, going only 7-9 with a 4.52 ERA in 26 starts.

"I just had a really bad year. And although I did hire an agent to handle my possible move to overseas, I didn't want to make that public during the season because I was having a down year," Won said. "I haven't had a chance to think about free agency. My agent will handle all of that."