The Korea Herald

Ryu Hyun-jin throws 5 shutout innings to win season debut for Dodgers

Mar 23, 2014

Ryu Hyun-jin of the Los Angeles Dodgers won his first start of the 2014 season against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Australia on Sunday, throwing five shutout innings in LA's 7-5 win in the second game of the Major League Baseball (MLB) opening series Down Under. Ryu stymied the Diamondbacks at Sydney Cricket Ground, yielding just two hits and one walk while striking out five batters. He also went 1-for-2 with a run scored at the plate. He threw 87 pitches, 55 of them for strikes. Ryu opened
Pitcher Yoon to begin season in minors

Mar 20, 2014

South Korean pitcher Yoon Suk-min will begin his first U.S. season in the minors.The Baltimore Orioles said Wednesday, local time, that they have optioned Yoon to their Triple-A affiliate in Virginia, the Norfolk Tide, where the right-hander is expected to be a starter.Yoon, 27, signed a three-year contract worth $5.575 million in February. He didn’t pitch his first preseason game until last week, after getting his work permit in a drawn-out process that forced him to travel to Canada for a few
Pitchers having painful spring

Mar 19, 2014

TAMPA, Florida (AP) ― Jarrod Parker, Kris Medlen and Luke Hochevar are out for the season, Patrick Corbin and Brandon Beachy might join them in the operating room.All over spring training, there’s been an outbreak of wrecked elbows and pained pitchers.Next stop, those dreaded words: Tommy John surgery.“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” Tommy John himself said Tuesday. “Tommy John surgery will grow exponentially in the next 50 years.”“I really think there will come a day when if you have 12 pitcher
Rivalry gets early kick start in 2014 MLB season

Mar 19, 2014

SYDNEY (AP) ― Suspensions to eight players and a controversial NL West-clinching swimming pool incident last season helped expand a growing rivalry between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks.But Dodgers manager Don Mattingly says he doesn’t expect any serious animosity to carry over from last year when the teams meet to open the major league season Saturday and Sunday at the Sydney Cricket Ground. But he couldn’t rule it out either.The suspensions came after a brawl last June, and
Diamondbacks and Dodgers arrive Down Under

Mar 18, 2014

SYDNEY (AP) ― The Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers arrived to a very low-key welcome in Australia on Tuesday for their Major League Baseball season-opening series this weekend after 15-hour flights from the U.S. west coast.The Diamondbacks arrived first at Sydney airport about 6 a.m. local time Tuesday, followed about four hours later by the Dodgers.“It’s great to be here,” said Dodgers’ veteran announcer Vin Scully.There were only a few autograph seekers to meet both teams, unlike r
Dodgers, D-Backs off to Australia

Mar 17, 2014

Two clubs set to open 2014 MLB season
Yoon shines in Orioles debut

Mar 16, 2014

SARASOTA, Florida (AP) ― South Korean right-hander Yoon Suk-min threw one shutout inning in his debut with the Baltimore Orioles, who got a home run from Chris Davis in a 2-1 victory over a New York Yankees’ split-squad Saturday.The 27-year-old Yoon didn’t exactly face a Murderer’s Row of Yankees, who sent most of their stars to Panama for an exhibition game.Yoon entered in the seventh with the score tied at 1. He gave up a single to Ramon Flores, then retired Mason Williams and Kyle Roller on f
New face emerges as unlikely hero for Nexen in preseason

Mar 14, 2014

A virtually unknown outfielder has emerged as an unlikely hero for the Nexen Heroes so far this preseason in the Korea Baseball Organization.Kang Ji-kwang, a 23-year-old pitcher-turned-outfielder, has taken the league by storm, barely a week into the preseason. On Thursday, the right-handed batter belted two home runs and drove in three runs as the Heroes defeated the SK Wyverns 6-0. Both of the long balls were hit off SK’s former Major League Baseball starter Jo-Jo Reyes.Kang now leads the leag
Underachieving righty to start first game at Kia’s ballpark

Mar 13, 2014

An underachieving right-hander was tabbed Thursday to start the first official game at the new stadium for the Kia Tigers in the top domestic baseball league.The Korea Baseball Organization club said Song Eun-beom will start the preseason game against the Doosan Bears on Saturday at the new Gwangju-Kia Champions Field.The ballpark is named after the Tigers’ home city of Gwangju, about 330 kilometers south of Seoul. The Tigers as a franchise have the most championships in the KBO’s 32-year histor
Samsung Lions eye fourth consecutive title: manager

Mar 5, 2014

The Samsung Lions have won the past three championships in the top domestic baseball league, and the goal this year is to extend the impressive streak, the team’s manager said Wednesday.After the Lions wrapped up their 50-day spring training in Guam and then in Okinawa this week, Ryu Joong-il made it clear that he won’t settle for anything less than another title.“Our objective this year is of course to win our fourth consecutive championship,” Ryu was quoted as saying in the Lions’ press releas
Busan to build baseball Hall of Fame

Mar 4, 2014

Busan inked an agreement with the national governing body of professional baseball Tuesday to build the sport’s first official Hall of Fame in the country.Busan, the country’s second-largest city about 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul, reached a deal with the Korea Baseball Organization to build the Hall of Fame in its county of Kijang by 2016.Building the commemorative hall is part of the KBO’s project to celebrate more than 100 years of baseball and 30-plus years of professional baseball in t
Rangers lineup has global flair

Feb 27, 2014

SURPRISE, Arizona (AP) ― When Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington fills out his lineup card on opening day, he will likely write down the names of players from seven different countries, plus Puerto Rico.Baseball is clearly universal at Texas.“When we’re out there on the field, we’re all from the same country. We all represent the Texas Rangers,” said Elvis Andrus, the shortstop from Venezuela. “Where you come from, or your nationality, actually don’t matter. When we’re all together, we’re fami
Prosecution raids KBO over corruption allegations

Feb 27, 2014

Prosecutors on Thursday raided the head office of the nation’s professional baseball governing body as part of their investigation into allegations that several employees embezzled its funds. The employees of the Korea Baseball Organization, including a former secretary general whose identity has been withheld, are under suspicion of siphoning off the government funds worth 713 million won ($667,000) by cooking the books, prosecutors said.A team of prosecutors and investigators at the Seoul Cent
Average salary of S. Korean baseballers tops W100m mark

Feb 26, 2014

The average annual salary of South Korean professional baseball players has surpassed the 100 million won mark in 2014 for the first time in history, the baseball governing body said Wednesday. According to the report released by the Korea Baseball Organization, a total of 477 South Korean players, excluding rookies and foreign players, will receive a record high of 106.4 million won ($99,198) on average for the 2014 season, up 11.8 percent from the previous record of 95.17 million won last yea
MLB bans most home collisions

Feb 25, 2014

NEW YORK (AP) ― Rather than ban home plate collisions outright, Major League Baseball and its players adopted a rule limiting them this season.In what both sides said was a one-year experiment, the rule allows collisions if the catcher has the ball and is blocking the runner’s direct path to home plate, and if the catcher goes into the basepath to field a throw to the plate.“It’s not a radical departure from what it had been,” Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon said.The new rule, 7.13, states “a