William Cuevas (33), who has returned to KT, confirmed that he is the same as before ahead of his comeback game. He will start against Samsung on Sunday as planned.
Cuevas pitched out of the bullpen before the SSG-KT game at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on Thursday. He signed with KT on Sept. 9 and arrived in Korea on Sept. 12. Cuevas, who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Triple-A team in the United States, traveled to Korea after pitching in a game locally. The bullpen pitches were scheduled to coincide with Cuevas’ pitching schedule in the United States. The emphasis was on making sure Cuevas had recovered his conditioning after changing planes seven times in the space of a few days.메이저놀이터
Cuevas threw 32 pitches. All five pitches were tested, including his fastball and changeup. KT manager Lee Kang-cheol didn’t even watch the entire game. After watching the first inning, he said, “It’s the same as before. It’s fine.” After the pitch, Cuevas discussed his start date with Lee. KT had a vacancy in the Samsung Electronics starting order on the 17th, and Cuevas said “no problem” after pitching that day, so the schedule for his comeback game was finalized.
Cuevas said, “I pitched out of the bullpen and felt less tired than I thought. I was happy with it, I’m ready to go,” he said, adding, “I was able to reconnect with my teammates as if I had never been away. It was a lot of fun.”
Cuevas pitched a monster season at the end of the 2021 season, especially in the tiebreaker against Samsung in the final game, leading KT to the regular season title, and in the Korean Series, where he pitched a dominant Game 1 to lead the team to the overall title. He was immediately crowned the ace and started 2022 with high hopes, but before he could even throw a pitch, he suffered an elbow injury that forced him to leave the KBO.
“I don’t want to try to do better, I just want to pitch the same way I did before. It’s not that I was the ace, but we won the championship in 2021 because everyone on the team was an ace,” Cuevas said. “I was always following KT’s team news. The first thing I need to do is raise the spirits within the team and in the dugout. There’s a lot of season left and a long way to go. The goal is to pitch well and win. We have to keep the Korean Series in the back of our minds, not the postseason. I think we can do it.”