Mentality is definitely ‘national level’
Lee Yi-ri of the KIA Tigers is pitching even better. In a situation where it would be strange for him to have a mental breakdown, he is pitching with more focus. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he has the qualities to succeed as a professional athlete.
On September 9, Lee started a game against the Samsung Lions at Gwangju Kia Champions Field and pitched 5⅔ innings, striking out 10 and allowing one run. While he didn’t get the win, Lee’s performance helped Kia pull off a 3-1 upset and keep their top-five hopes alive. It was a truly meaningful pitch.
Lee’s last three games are worth noting. He only has one win, but he’s only allowed two runs in 18 innings. After seven scoreless innings against the NC Dinos and one run in 5⅓ innings against the KT Wiz, the momentum carried over to Samsung Electronics.
You might ask, what’s the big deal about a starting pitcher winning three straight games? But Lee has a story. He was named to the roster for the Hangzhou Asian Games, only to be cut a day before the team was called up. A blistered finger was the final straw for Lee, who gave up five runs (four earned) in 1⅓ innings against the Hanwha Eagles last month.
He said his finger was getting better and better, but the coaching staff didn’t believe him when he said he would be at his best in Hangzhou. In that situation, I was eliminated, and in the three games that followed, I hit over 100 balls hard. If she had stayed in the national team, she would have been able to fulfill Liu Zhongil’s 80 standards. The situation was unfair enough.
And his teammates won the gold medal. While the baseball world was happy, Lee may have felt a deep sense of despair that he wasn’t there. It’s hard to say it out loud, but his teammates were given military benefits that you can’t put a price tag on as a professional athlete. What’s even more shocking is that there were athletes who won gold medals without playing a single at-bat or inning because of the same injury as him. If you think about why he was being held to such a high standard, it must have kept him awake at night.
That’s why Samsung’s performance was even more impressive. In a way, it was even more emotional than when he was eliminated from the roster, because he threw the ball silently to help his team advance to fall baseball.캡틴토토
Lee was also evaluated as a “bird’s-eye” pitcher because of his weaknesses in throwing strikes compared to his strong pitches, but this showed that he had a stronger mental attitude than anyone else.