Ace Eric Peddy was included in the entry, but he cannot play in the first game. For the NC Dinos, how long starting pitcher Shin Min-hyuk (24) will endure is the biggest key to the first game. NC will face SSG Landers in the first round of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO postseason semi-playoff (best of five) at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on the 22nd.
Shin Min-hyuk (NC) and Roenis Elias (SSG) are the starters for the first round. Neither team can put forward the “first starter” cards of Peddy and Kirk McCarty. Nevertheless, it is true that the starting pitcher’s weight is tilted toward SSG. This is because SSG puts forward foreigners, while NC has a young pitcher with no postseason experience.
Even in the entire series, it is safe to say that NC has no card ahead of SSG except Peddy. Even another foreign Tanner Turley failed to show a powerful performance in the wild card game against the Doosan Bears, and the domestic starters should be set up with Song Myung-ki and Choi Sung-young without Koo Chang-mo.
Even assuming that they play until Game 5, there are only two games in which Peddy can play. In the end, NC can only advance to the playoffs if it catches more than one game without Peddy.
Among them, the match in the first round is very important. This is because if NC wins without putting up a pedi card, it can take the upward trend.
In this regard, Shin Min-hyuk’s good pitching is desperately needed. In particular, if they can maintain a close game by dragging more than five innings, NC can bet on the game through the intermediate pitching line where Ryu Jin-wook and Kim Young-kyu hold out.
However, Shin Min-hyuk was not a pitcher who attracted long innings even in the regular season. He pitched only five times in six innings in 17 games he started, and he pitched only five innings in nine.
From NC’s point of view, unlike the regular season, it can quickly take the timing of pitcher replacement. In a crisis situation, there is ample room to break the flow by putting veteran Lee Jae-hak and left-hander Ha Joon-young.
Shin’s main weapon is change-up. The game is decided by a change-up that takes the timing away from a fastball in the mid-140km/h range.
However, he did not perform very well against SSG hitters this season. In four games, he allowed nine runs in 12 ⅓ innings and had an ERA of 6.57. 슬롯머신
However, the regular season and the postseason can flow into another aspect, so it is difficult to make premature guesses with the previous record alone.
In the case of SSG starter Elias, his performance against NC this season was worse than Shin Min-hyuk with a 7.53 ERA in three games and one flight loss. In particular, there is no reason for Shin Min-hyuk to feel intimidated, as he remembers collapsing with five runs (four earned runs) in three innings and seven runs in five ⅓ innings in two appearances in October, the end of the regular season.