Wednesday, April 8, 2009

4/7 Roundup and News

I don't normally post about non-Korea related subjects, but this really frosted my beans.

Yesterday, I attempted to login to MLB.TV for the Seattle/Minnesota game. I have Liriano on a few fantasy teams and I wanted to actually see if I had chosen wisely. The "new and improved" MLB.TV was essentially a disaster. It was slow, choppy and the video was of poor quality, but don't take my word for it. Check out the "Quality Questions" section of the MLB forums. That wasn't the annoying part. What chapped my ass was this. Paid shill Mark Newman thinks the new player is "great" and "crystal clear." You should have seen the look on my face when I saw this on the frontpage of MLB.com. It was a total 1984 moment. So, we're not even acknowledging the struggles of thousands of paid subscribers, but instead telling them that the service is great. Mark Newman, you just made the list.

On to the effing roundup...


In an effort to increase revenue, the LG cheersquad has started robbing banks. Joke, seriously, that's a joke. They're just marketing their new line of scarves...in April.

LG 3, Lotte 1
W - Shim Soo-chang (1-0), L - Cho Jang-hoon (0-1), S - Woo Gyu-min (1)

The story here was LG starting pitcher, Shim Soo-chang(102 pitches, 64 strikes). Shim worked 6 1/3 scoreless innings against a TOUGH Lotte lineup. He allowed 6 hits and 1 walk with 5 K's. He actually did get into a jam in the 4th inning with runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs, but a key baserunning mistake by Lee Dae-ho let him off the hook. LG leftfielder Lee Jin-yeong drove in LG's first run on an RBI single in the first inning. LG scored again in the 7th on an awful throwing error by Lotte's Kim Joo-chan. LG added an insurance run on Kwon Yong-kwan's 8th inning solo homer. Woo Gyu-min struck out 2 of the 3 batters he faced while recording his first save. Of the 9 pitches Woo threw, 8 were strikes.



Doosan 7, Hanwha 7 (12)


A 12 inning tie. How I missed these. Hanwha actually held a 5-1 lead in this one, but starting pitcher Yoo Won-sang ran out of gas. By "ran out of gas" I mean he started giving up mammoth homeruns. To be fair, Hanwha wore out Doosan starter, Kim Myeong-je. Kim Tae-gyun clubbed his first homer of the season off of Kim. I believe Kim chose to start Kim Tae-gyun with a "get-me-over" fastball and Kim got it over the fence for a 2-run bomb. Either way, during the 6th inning, Hanwha pitching turned a 5-1 lead into a 6-5 deficit. Doosan leftfielder, Kim Hyeon-su started the scoring with a 2-run bomb(his 2nd homer of the game). The next batter, Matt Watson, clubbed a solo homer into the 15th row of the rightfield seats. As soon as Watson hit the dugout, Yoo was pulled in favor of Ma Jeong-gil. After drilling the first batter he faced in the shoulder, pinch hitter Choi Jun-seok took Ma over the fence in right/center for a 2-run bomb. Doosan added an insurance run in the 9th on an RBI triple from Lee Dae-su. Hanwha tied the game in the bottom of the 9th after an RBI single from Yoon Jae-kuk and Victor Diaz. Both hits came after Koh Yeong-min played a groundball that would have ended the game into runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs. Both teams tried to let the other score, but neither could plate anyone during the 3 extra innings. Hanwha even brought in last year's Cy Yuck winner Yang Hoon to blow the game. He tried awfully hard, but, like always, he failed to deliver.



SK 4, KIA 3
W - Kim Kwang-hyeon (1-0), L - Rick Guttormson (0-1), S - Lee Seung-ho (1)

Kim Kwang-hyeon wasn't awesome in this one, but he was good enough to beat KIA. He looks like a pitcher that's still behind. It's obvious the WBC screwed up his training schedule. He didn't even throw 120 pitches in this one! Kim got into a little early trouble, but he was able to settle down and cruise for the last 4 innings of his outing. Kim worked 7 innings(97 pitches, 61 strikes) allowing 3 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks with 8 K's. He allowed a 2-run homer in the first inning to Choi Hee-seop. KIA scored its third run when SK SS Park Jeong-kwan threw a double play ball into right field on the exchange. Down, 3-1 in the top of the 4th, SK rallied to take the lead. Jeong Geun-woo hit a fly ball to deep center. KIA centerfielder Lee Yong-gyu appeared to turn his ankle when he collided with the wall. Lee was able to get to the ball and get it back to the infield before Jeong could score, but he needed to be helped off the field. The nect batter, Park Jae-kwon clubbed a 2-run homer that stayed juuuuust inside the rightfield fairpole to give SK a 4-3 advantage.



Seoul Heroes 10, Samsung 8
W - Cho Yong-hoon(1-0), L - Kwon Hyeok (0-1), S - Hwang Doo-seong (1)

Both starting pitchers looked very mediocre last night. National team member, Jeong Won-sam didn't make it out of the 4th inning and Samsung's foreign ringer looks like he's going to be on the unemployment line fairly soon. I'm not going to bore you with the blow-by-blow details of this game, but it was a long, slow KBO slugfest that was fairly ugly to watch. It's also fairly troubling that both Kwon Hyeok and Oh Seung-hwan continue to give up runs. Maybe the last 4 years of constant use is starting to catch up to the Dynamic Duo. On the offensive side of this one, 8 DIFFERENT Samsung Lions doubled last night. This team looks a lot younger and faster than last year's team already. I'm a little afraid to admit to my mancrush on 2nd baseman, Kim Sang-su, but if he keeps hitting like this I'm going to be wearing his jersey by June. He was 2-5 last night with a walk, 1 run scored, 1 RBI and a stolen base. Cliff Brumbaugh likes having Doug Clark hitting in front of him. At least I'm assuming so by the results. For all I know, Brumbaugh and Clark could hate each other, but the two are combining for positive results on the baseball field. Clark was 2-5 with a run scored and Brumbaugh finished the night 3-4 with a double, a homer, 1 run scored and 3 RBI. Big Cliff was one of 3 Heroes to go yard last night. Hwang Jae-gyun went deep in the first inning off Cruceta and Lee Taek-geun hit one off of Oh Seung-hwan in the 8th.

3 comments:

AT said...

Which package did you buy? I got the cheaper one last year and suffered through it, then bought the pricey one this year and, I have to say, the picture is pretty good. But it depends on the computer you use.

Glenn said...

MLB.TV is on my list too. I've been on the phone to customer service every day since the season began. Anyhoo, how 'bout them Heroes?

Anonymous said...

I think they raised up their price for this year didn't it??

during the WBC, I had a opportunity to "test drive" the mlb network as well as what I payed for the service for the WBC, and I must say, it was pretty cool with the improvement on the screen quality and studio setups.