KT Wiz starter Wes Benjamin got the upper hand in a pitching duel of left-handers in the Korea Baseball Organization wild card game Thursday, sending his club to the next round of the postseason in the process.
Benjamin fired seven shutout innings in the Wiz’s 1-0 victory over the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. By winning their second straight game, the Wiz became the first No. 5 seed to move out of the wild card round.
KT Wiz starter Wes Benjamin pitches against the Doosan Bears during the teams’ Korea Baseball Organization wild card game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Oct. 3, 2024. (Yonhap)
KT Wiz starter Wes Benjamin pitches against the Doosan Bears during the teams’ Korea Baseball Organization wild card game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Oct. 3, 2024. (Yonhap)
Not much was expected of Benjamin for this game, and the Wiz were prepared to send one reliever after another to the mound if Benjamin struggled in the early innings.
The American southpaw stumbled across the
finish line of the regular season, posting an 8.34 ERA in his final five starts while serving up eight homers in just 22 2/3 innings. He had also struggled against the Bears during the regular season with an 8.18 ERA in three starts.
It was a far different story Thursday.
Benjamin barely broke a sweat in the first two innings, needing 23 pitches to retire six straight batters. Benjamin then pitched around a one-out single in the third, and sat down three straight batters in the fourth.
Benjamin faced just one dangerous situation in the fifth inning when the Bears had a runner in scoring position for the first time. With a runner at second, Heo Kyoung-min knocked a single to left, but left fielder Mel Rojas Jr. helped out his pitcher by throwing out Yang Suk-hwan at home with a cannon.
KT Wiz starter Wes Benjamin celebrates after retiring the side in the bottom of the seventh inning against the Doosan Bears during the teams’ Korea Baseball Organization wild card game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on
Oct. 3, 2024. (Yonhap)
KT Wiz starter Wes Benjamin celebrates after retiring the side in the bottom of the seventh inning against the Doosan Bears during the teams’ Korea Baseball Organization wild card game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Oct. 3, 2024. (Yonhap)
Benjamin had a tough act to follow after his rotation mate, William Cuevas, had fired six shutout innings and struck out nine in Wednesday’s 4-0 victory.
Benjamin wasn’t as dominant but was no less effective. He kept Bears hitters off balance all day, inducing 11 groundouts and two pop flies. His slider was particularly sharp, and he recorded four of his six strikeouts with that pitch.
Benjamin threw 64 of his 88 pitches for strikes. He mixed in five types of pitches: four-seam fastball, slider, cutter, changeup and curveball.
Benjamin said he tried to go “inning by inning” and keep things as close as possible. He was able to put struggles from the late weeks of the regular season behind him.
“In the past month, I’ve been kind of off timi
ng wise. I’ve been searching to figure out what’s been going on and why I haven’t been having success this past month,” he said. “So I just kind of let everything go and just think about how I would normally pitch and I’m not trying to do too much. I think we kind of discovered what I needed to do to have success with mechanically and things like that. So we’re on the right track and I’m excited to see what happens moving forward.”
He said he wasn’t paying attention to his poor track record against the Bears.
“At this point, it doesn’t matter who we face. The goal is the same so I can’t dwell on the past,” he said. “Unfortunately, this hasn’t been one of my better years, statistics wise. I think I’ve been playing better than my numbers suggest. Every time they’ve played me, they’ve had a good result. So I knew I was due for a good one eventually.”
Benjamin said he could “just feel the momentum shift” when Rojas threw out Yang at home.
“I feel like it was their only chance at building momentum and we crush
ed it,” Benjamin added. “And from then on, every at-bat, it seemed like I had the upper hand.”
Bears starter Choi Seung-yong held the Wiz to three singles before getting the hook with two outs in the fifth inning and the game still scoreless. After missing the first half of the season while recovering from an elbow injury, Choi had finished the regular season on a note and carried that momentum into the postseason.
But for the second straight game, the Bears’ offense was silenced by the opposing pitchers.
After Benjamin, swingman Ko Young-pyo and closer Park Yeong-hyun each threw a perfect inning to preserve the win.
Source: Yonhap News Agency