He spun coffee to celebrate his first win, but what he got back was ‘zero’ run support.
Kiwoom foreign pitcher Ian McKinney suffered his second loss of the season (1-0) despite pitching six innings of five-hit ball with three walks and two strikeouts against Doosan in the ninth game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Sunday.
McKinney’s first outing outside of the Gocheok Dome after playing two games in his KBO debut, and he was able to get out of trouble early on. In the first inning, McKinney led off with a single to left and Yang Ji-won doubled to put runners on second and third, but he got Jose Rojas to fly out to center field. Two batters later, he got Park Kye-beom to ground out to third base on a wild pitch.
McKinney gave up the go-ahead run in the third. He walked leadoff hitter Jung Soo-bin, but gave up singles to Kim Jae-ho and Yang Ji to put runners on first and second, and Rojas followed with a single to left-center. McKinney got Kang Seung-ho to fly out to center field to end the ensuing runners on second and third.
McKinney followed up the first triple of the fourth inning with an 0-1 count. This time, a walk was the key. After a leadoff walk to Jung Soo-bin, a sacrifice bunt and a walk put runners on second and third with no outs.
Down 0-2 in the sixth, McKinney took the mound and faced Rojas, Kang Seung-ho, and Hong Sung-ho for an 11-pitch, three-hit shutout inning. The first batter he faced, Rojas, gave up a spine-chilling foul ball, but McKinney didn’t waver in his second straight quality start.
There was no run support. McKinney was replaced by Young-min Ha in the seventh inning, trailing 0-2. He threw 96 pitches. The team falls to 0-4 with its second loss of the season.
McKinney, who was selected as a replacement foreign pitcher for Eric Yokishi, signed with Kiwoom on June 16 for a total of $185,000 (about 200 million won). In his debut, he took the loss against Doosan in Gocheok on June 25 after giving up two runs in four innings, but secured the win with a six-inning no-hitter against SSG in Gocheok on July 1.
Prior to the game, McKinney served 70 cups of coffee to the coaching staff and players to celebrate the first win, according to KIUM officials. “My teammates helped me on defense and offense, and they had my back in the bullpen,” McKinney said. “We bought coffee to thank them and to keep the team together. It was iced coffee because it was hot,” he said sincerely.온라인바카
The batters, however, were unable to capitalize on McKinney’s performance. The Doosan bullpen of Kwak-Bin Kwak, Myung-Shin Kim, Chi-Kook Park, and Kang-Ryul Kim failed to capitalize, and McKinney suffered his second loss of the season.