On Thursday night in Adelaide, GK was losing by a score of 7-0 to the Giants in the bottom of the eighth when manager Lee Byung-kyu went to his bullpen and called in....53 year old pitcher Koo Dae-sung! Koo pitched a perfect inning, striking out two and throwing 17 total pitches - 12 for strikes. Here's the highlights (with Korean commentary):
Koo didn't even have his own jersey - he was wearing the #43 belonging to Seo Jun-won.
The next night Adelaide was again beating up on Geelong in the eighth inning - this time by a score of 8-1 - when Lee went to the bullpen and again brought in Koo. This time Koo was wearing Kim Jin-uk's #7. Things didn't go quite as well for Koo this time. He walked the first batter but got the next two hitters to fly out to the outfield. He then gave up a double, putting runners on second and third with two outs. He got the next batter to hit a slow grounder to second baseman Kim Ju-sung which should have gotten him out of the inning but Kim rushed the throw and it went past the first baseman. Both runners scored and the batter ended up on second. Koo walked the next batter but got the next batter to ground to first baseman Kim Kyu-sung. Kim looked to first but realized that Koo wasn't covering so he pivoted to get the force out at second. Koo threw 21 pitches but only 12 were strikes. His pitching line included two walks, one hit and two runs - but both runs were unearned. Here's the highlights (again with Korean commentary):
It's generally a mistake to use your relief pitchers three days in a row, especially when they turn 54 in a couple weeks, so Koo did not make an appearance in yesterday's game. It was also a much tighter game as there was no score until Adelaide pushed a couple runs across in the bottom of the eighth so it probably wouldn't have been appropriate to do the stunt again. But the Giants beat up Geelong again today by a score of 11-0 and manager Lee brought Koo in again to get the final out. Koo (wearing You Ji-sung's #23) retired the one batter he faced on one pitch which was grounded to shortstop. I don't have a video for this.
Koo's Baseball-Reference page has been updated to include these three games - 2 1/3 innings pitched with two strikeouts, two walks, one hit and two runs. Since the runs were unearned his ERA is 0.00 but his Runs per 9 innings average was 7.71.
Koo of course had a long career in the KBO with the Binggre/Hanwha Eagles (1993-2000, 2006-2010), in NPB with the Orix BlueWave (2001-04) and MLB with the New York Mets (2005). He'd also spent five seasons playing with the Sydney BlueSox of the ABL from 2010/11 season to the 2014/15 season. He'd managed Geelong Korea for their first two seasons in the ABL (2018-19 and 2019-20) and had actually previously made an appearance with GK at age 48 during the 2018-19 season.
Here are cards for Koo from Korea, Japan and Australia:
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| 2000 Teleca #78 |
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| 2001 Upper Deck #108 |
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| 2012/13 Select #66 |
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