Seoul: Before Yonny Chirinos made his Korea Baseball Organization debut for the LG Twins on Saturday afternoon, manager Youm Kyoung-youb said he hoped the former major league pitcher would win around 15 games this year. Judging from his first outing, Chirinos may end up winning more than 15 starts.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the Venezuelan righty held the Lotte Giants to two runs on five hits in six innings while striking out eight, as the Twins cruised to a 12-2 victory at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. “This was my first career Opening Day start anywhere, and I tried to fulfill my responsibility,” Chirinos said through an interpreter after the game, while clutching his game ball as a souvenir. “I fed off the energy of our fans. They gave us great support.”
All eight of his strikeouts were of the swinging variety, and all came on his bread-and-butter forkball. “During spring training, I didn’t get the pitch to move the way I wanted it to, and I tweaked the grip a little bit,” Chirinos said. “I became more comfortable with the new grip and came into this game feeling pretty confident. It worked really well today.”
Chirinos struck out leadoff man Hwang Seong-bin to set the tone for the day, and retired the next two batters on groundballs. After the Twins put up a three-spot in the bottom of the first inning, Chirinos pitched around a pair of one-out singles in the top second, escaping the jam with a strikeout and a flyout.
Chirinos picked up two more strikeouts in the third inning and appeared to be in cruise control. The Twins gave him even more cushion by scoring four times in the bottom third, but Chirinos looked a bit shaky in the top fourth, when he loaded the bases with a double and consecutive walks.
Son Ho-young’s single through the hole on the left brought in two runs for the Giants, and Yoo Kang-nam followed up with a single to load the bases again. But Chirinos struck out Park Seung-wook on a forkball before getting Hwang to pop out to catcher.
Chirinos did not give up another hit the rest of the way. After walking Jeon Jun-woo with one out in the sixth, Chirinos struck out the next two batters to punctuate his outing. He made 103 pitches, though manager Youm had said pregame he would hold the starter to about 90 pitches.
“I had thrown 85 pitches during the preseason, and I tried to eat up as many innings as I could today,” Chirinos said. “I didn’t pay that much attention to my pitch count today.” Chirinos touched 151 kilometers per hour with his two-seam fastballs and kept Giants hitters off balance with a mix of forkballs and sliders.
Chirinos signed with the Twins in November after logging 75 games in the majors from 2018 to 2024, 64 of them with the Tampa Bay Rays. When told of Youm’s pregame talk on Chirinos’ win total, the pitcher said, “I’ve never won 15 games in a season before and I hope this will be the first one.” “Wins are obviously important, but I want to give the team my best every outing,” he added. “Instead of trying to be the winning pitcher every game, I will try to help the team as much as I can.”