Beat Australia and "Beauty of the End"...Baseball National Team Reaffirms International Stage Limits

[Anchor]
The national baseball team, which competed in the Premier 12, finished the tournament with 3 wins and 2 losses, beating Australia in its last game.

He received a report card of elimination from the preliminary round, leaving formidable tasks such as the absence of starting pitchers, and the gap with the world stage is widening.

I'm reporter Yang Si-chang.

[Reporter]
Ko Young-pyo, who collapsed after two home runs in the first game against Taiwan, was different in the last game.

He gave up only one hit until the second out of the fourth inning, tying up the Australian batting line.

Seven bullpen pitchers then defended the lead by allowing two runs the rest of the inning.

In the at-bat, Kim Do-young swept RBIs in the third and fourth innings in a row, and the score gap widened by operating a wedge two-run shot in the sixth inning.

The national baseball team, which defeated Australia 5–2, finished the Premier 12 with 3–2 losses and 3rd place in the group.

[Ko Young-pyo / Baseball team pitcher: It would have been nice to play a good game in the first game, but that's a regret, but I threw it from the mound with a feeling of sorry for Korean baseball fans.]

It is a reconfirmation of the reality of the "frog in the well" that has opened the era of 10 million spectators but has not strengthened its inner room.

Our national baseball team has been backpedaling on the international stage for eight years since it was eliminated in the first round of the WBC in 2017.

In this tournament, the starting team was so weak that no pitcher lasted five innings during five games.The fact that the mound's power is weaker than that of Taiwan, let alone Japan, to the extent that the

team's ERA reached 5.56, proves that it is in a serious crisis.

[Ryu Joong-il / Baseball team coach: We have about 15 months left until the big tournament. I think we need to catch various problems one by one, including the starting pitcher.]

The next international competition for the national baseball team is the 2026 WBC and 2028 LA Olympics.

Some are pessimistic that the gap with baseball's advanced countries will widen further if the tasks in front of the national team, such as fostering the starting lineup, are not solved quickly.

It's YTN Yang Si-chang.



Video editing: Oh HWONSEULGI
Design: Joo Hye-min