NC Dinos right-hander Shin Min-hyuk will look to continue the good feelings he had in the fall of this year in Tokyo, Japan.
Shin Min-hyuk left Gimpo International Airport on Thursday for Tokyo, Japan, where the 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) will be held. The APBC team, led by coach Ryu Jung-il, arrived at Gimpo International Airport around 7 a.m. on the 14th, and departed with a lot of fan support.
Shin Min-hyuk met with the press before departure and said, “My physical condition is fine. There were no difficulties because I played fall baseball,” he said. After pitching in the playoffs and taking a short break to recharge his batteries, Shin joined the APBC 2023 team at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu, where they have been training for the past 10 days.
In one semi-playoff game against SSG Landers this year, Shin pitched 5⅔ innings of one-hit ball, striking out four and walking one. Behind Shin’s strong pitching, NC swept SSG in Game 1 with a 4-3 victory and kept the momentum going to close out the series in three games.
In the playoffs, NC faced KT and pitched two games. In Game 2, he pitched 6⅓ scoreless innings to earn the win. In Game 5, he pitched 4⅓ innings of two-run ball. Although his team didn’t advance to the Korean Series, Shin, who was pitching in the postseason for the first time, was impressive in Game 3.
So much so that he was dubbed “Little Pedi. He became NC’s homegrown ace in the postseason. “Whenever I had a question, I would ask Pedi, and I learned a lot from him, especially about his changeup,” says Shin. It’s not bad to have a nickname tied to a top pitcher. I want to do better in the future.”
His next stop will be the APBC. Shin Min-hyuk was selected as an alternate. Shin, who was on the 20-man reserve roster, was selected after the KBO decided to replace all LG and KT players in the Korean Series.
The KBO Power Enhancement Committee, manager Ryu Joong-il and his coaching staff decided to replace all players from LG and KT who are participating in the Korean Series and select the best performers from the reserve roster who have been training together at the Samsung Lions Park camp in Daegu.
LG’s Jung Woo-young, Moon Bo-kyung, KT’s Park Young-hyun, and the injured Kang Baek-ho were left out, and in their place came Shin Min-hyuk, along with Cho Byung-hyun (SSG), Yasu Na Seung-yeop (Lotte), and Moon Hyun-bin (Hanwha).
Shin gained confidence. This year’s fall baseball was a good experience. “I learned a lot through fall baseball,” he said. I want to keep what I did in the national team. I want to do well, and I want to grow to the next level,” he said.
The team will hold an official training session at the Tokyo Dome on Friday, followed by the first game of the preliminary round against Australia at 12 noon on Saturday. They will 스포츠토토 then face Japan at 7 p.m. on the 17th, followed by the final match against Chinese Taipei at 7 p.m. on the 18th.
If they finish second in the pool play, they will play the final at 6 p.m. on the 19th, otherwise they will play the third-place game at 11 a.m. the same day.
“I’m not fast with the ball, so I’ll fight as hard as I can with my pitches, and I think I’ll have a good result,” said Shin Min-hyuk, “It’s my first time being selected for the national team. I hope the results will be good. I will do my best to be helpful and grow as a player.”
