Charlie Barnes (28), the ‘left-handed lion’ of the Lotte Giants, was once on the verge of being kicked out. However, in the second half, they are sweeping the victory despite their uneasy appearance.

Barnes took the mound as a starting pitcher in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League home game against the NC Dinos at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan on the 2nd, recording 6 innings, 7 hits, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts and 3 runs.메이저놀이터

He was obviously not a perfect pitcher. Barnes, who gave up a hit from the first inning, made a tripartite inning, including two strikeouts in the second inning. Then, in the 3rd inning, after giving a hit to Son Ah-seop after two deaths, he committed a wild fight and was driven to the scoring crisis, and Kwon Hee-dong’s left-handed timely hit contributed a point.

In the beginning of the 4th inning, when they were leading 2-1, Jason Martin and Yoon Hyeong-jun’s consecutive hits caused a crisis on the 1st and 3rd base, and Do Tae-hoon and Park Se-hyuk were hit in a row and allowed a 3-2 turnaround. After the team succeeded in turning around 5-3, in the beginning of the 5th inning, the first and second bases were safe, but Park Kun-woo’s left fielder’s fly ball and Martin’s strikeout quickly took 2 outs. Even Yoon Hyeong-jun finished with a fly in center field, meeting the requirements for a winning pitcher.

Barnes, who threw 92 pitches through the fifth inning, came on the mound in the sixth inning as well. Barnes, who gave away balls to Do Tae-Hoon and Kim Joo-Won one after another, faced the risk of conceding again. However, the inning was closed when Son A-seop, a picky hitter, was thrown into center field in the first pitch.

On this day, Barnes did not pitch satisfactorily, sending out 10 runners. The player himself confessed, “Today’s game management was not easy.” Still, while holding on without completely collapsing, I was able to block the burden of the bullpen, which was exhausted from the previous day’s overtime game, to some extent. Lotte coach Larry Sutton also said, “I had a lot of pitches until the 6th inning, but I trusted my will to go one more inning and left it to me.”

In the second half, including this game, Barnes won all three games he started and is fighting with an average ERA of 1.93. On the 21st of last month, his first appearance in the second half, he recorded 5 hits, 5 hits, 2 strikeouts and no runs in 5⅔ innings against Sajik Kiwoom, followed by a quality start with 5 hits, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts and 1 run in 7 innings against Doosan in Jamsil on the 27th (6 or more starting innings, 3 runs) earned points or less).

In fact, Barnes was on the verge of being ejected throughout the first half. Prior to the All-Star break, he pitched in 16 games and recorded a record of 5-6 with a 4.57 ERA. He also had problems with inning digestibility, barely passing 5 innings per game while pitching 82⅔ innings. His walks, which were 2.3 per 9 innings last year, increased to 3.4 in the first half, and the number of pitches per inning also increased from 15.8 to 16.9. He could not show himself as a foreign ace at all.

His biggest problem was the unpredictable ups and downs. Barnes only had an ERA of 7.58 for the month of April. There was never a quality start (more than 6 innings starting, less than 3 earned runs). In May, he managed to rebound with an ERA of 1.82 in 4 games. Then, in June, it rose again to 4.38, and the last two games of the first half were 7 innings, 11 strikeouts and 1 run (July 1 against Ulsan Doosan) and 1⅓ innings, 4 hits, 4 walks and 6 runs (July 13 against Changwon NC). It showed the contents of the pitching of the play. Kim Hyun-wook (53), Lotte pitching coach, analyzed, “The reason Barnes was bad in the beginning was because he had difficulties in pitching design and control.”

However, as Lotte used two foreign replacement cards for pitcher Dan Straley (35) and outfielder Jack Rex (30), Barnes was automatically confirmed to remain. Before the start of the second half, Coach Kim revealed what he wanted from Barnes, saying, “It’s good when it’s good. Then the key is to maintain this good shape.”

The content of the pitch itself is uneasy, but Barnes is digesting more than 5 innings in all games in the second half anyway. Park Se-woong (28) and Na Gyun-an (24), who led the team’s starting lineup in the first half, were sluggish in the second half, and Barnes’ rebound is certainly welcome. In particular, Aaron Wilkerson (34), a new foreign pitcher, also played 5 innings in 2 games, alleviating worries about innings.

As of the 2nd, Lotte recorded a season win rate of 0.477 (42 wins, 46 losses) and remains in 7th place. It is still 2.5 games away from 5th place NC, and it is still holding on to its hopes for fall baseball. This is the situ