A 彼 of knowledge and 己 is a 殆 that will never pass a 百. It means that if you know your enemy and know yourself, you will not be in jeopardy even if you fight 100 times. After losing to Taiwan in the first Premier 12 match, Korea seemed to neither know your enemy nor know yourself. At the disappointing performance analysis, a legendary commentator expressed sincere criticism.
The Korean national baseball team, led by head coach Ryu Joong-il, lost 3-6 against Taiwan in the first Group B match of the 2024 WBSC Premier 12 at Taipei Dome in Taipei, Taiwan.
The batters were again tightly tied to Taiwanese starting pitcher Lin Yu-min (who allowed two hits, one walk, three strikeouts and two runs in four ⅔ innings), who faced off twice at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year. Since then, the team has failed to score points other than Na Seung-yup's solo shots against five Taiwanese bullpen pitchers.
The lack of offensive power, which had been a concern even before the championship, was something to be taken into account. While the batters had only three hits, three points were enough for the team to compete. However, the biggest problem was starting pitchers.
Ko Young-pyo, who Ryu Joong-il picked as the starting pitcher for the first game, was sluggish in two innings with five hits, two homers, two walks, two strikeouts and six runs. In the second inning alone, the team collapsed after hitting a grand slam and a two-run shot after two outs. As the bullpen pitcher consisting of Choi Ji-min (2 ⅔ innings), Kwak Do-gyu (⅓ innings), Kim Seo-hyun (1 inning), Yoo Young-chan (1 inning) and Cho Byung-hyun (1 inning) completely blocked the remaining seven innings without allowing any runs, the early collapse of the starting pitcher seemed to be more painful.
Lee Soon-cheol, a legendary commentator who watched the bitter defeat, analyzed the loss in the match against Taiwan through YouTube's Off the TV. When commentator Lee Taek-geun said, "When we think about it, there is a unique atmosphere and feeling of Taiwanese batters, but it seems that the feeling has changed a lot (from the existing Taiwanese national team)." Lee Soon-cheol said, "I saw it accurately. I felt that if we do 'Taiwan' we have power, but we lack in structure and detail. As a result, we thought about the past and selected Ko Young-pyo today (13th)," adding, "It is a big mistake when we think about Taiwanese batters in the past. If power, texture, and technology consider Taiwanese players in the past and analyze their power, they will be seriously hurt. If we play in the match against Taiwan, against Japan, or international competitions in the future, we need to analyze our power in more detail."
"If there was a good right-handed hitter (in Taiwan) when Ko Young-pyo went down and the left-handed pitcher came up, he would have been replaced. Even if the left-handed pitcher went up, Taiwan's starting lineup played without a replacement. Taiwan should have understood that left-handed hitters are the main force," he said. "But I couldn't figure out the power and concluded that the analysis of the power was wrong in the part where Ko Young-pyo was the starting pitcher with the vague idea that he couldn't hit an underhand pitcher in the past because he was a little less skilled."
In fact, the Taiwanese national team that participated in the Premier 12 consisted of 11 left-handed hitters out of 15 fielders. Of the four right-handed hitters, two were catchers, and very limited players could be included in the starting lineup. In fact, Taiwan put forward a starting lineup of six out of nine players as left-handed hitters to face side-arm pitcher Ko Young-pyo, which led to a successful result. 안전놀이터
In the KBO League this season, Ko Young-pyo had worse performance when he faced left-handed hitters than right-handed hitters (hit rate 0.297, POPS 0.758) (hit rate 0.336, POPS 0.805). The same was true last year (hit rate vs. right-handed hit rate 0.247 / vs. left-handed hitters 0.286). Although there was a powerful weapon called change-up against left-handed hitters, the change-up hit rate against left-handed hitters this year was 0.307 (based on statistics).
On the reason why Ko was selected as the starting pitcher ahead of the match against Taiwan, Ryu Joong-il said, "There was analysis of players' power that the swing type of Taiwanese batters threw downward and did not do well." However, when I opened the lid, Taiwanese batters did not have difficulty targeting Ko. After the match, Ryu reflected on his failure to block the left-handed batting line. Ultimately, analysis of his power that he did not know his enemy and himself led to his fatal defeat.