"Excluding 35 Hanwha players → To raise." Bae Dong-hyun has already won three games, the most in the league! "I wanted to protect my favorite brother, Ahn Woojin.""

*This content was translated by AI.

Kiwoom Heroes right-hander Bae Dong-hyun (28) announced the beginning of the second draft success story. After the end of the 2025 season, he suffered from being excluded from the Hanwha Eagles' 35-member protected list, but he is showing his team's new ace-class performance by blooming his potential after the transfer. He has already won three games, leading the KBO league in most wins this season.

Kiwoom won 2-0 at home against the Lotte Giants of the "2026 Shinhan SOL KBO League" at Gocheok Sky Dome in Guro-gu, Seoul on the 12th. After scoring one run each in the first and third innings, he overpowered Lotte's batters with the height of the mound. With this, Kiwoom ended the week in a good mood by breaking the chain of three consecutive losses and escaping from the crisis of a sweep of the weekend's three consecutive games.

The game drew great attention as "Ace" Ahn Woo-jin (27) returned to the starting lineup. Ahn Woo-jin, who took the mound for the first time in 955 days since August 31, 2023, signaled his return without losing a point in one inning with the maximum fastball speed of 160km/h. However, the "true protagonist" who led the victory by taking charge of the mound after Ahn Woo-jin stepped down was Bae Dong-hyun, the second pitcher.

Bae Dong-hyun, who took the mound in the second inning after Ahn Woo-jin, blocked six scoreless innings until the seventh inning. The fastball's maximum speed was 148 km, and he showed an economical pitch to clean up six innings with just 78 pitches. Although he was not a starter, he virtually disabled Lotte's batters by recording a "quality start (less than three earned runs in six innings).

With this victory, Bae Dong-hyun has already won his third victory of the season. It is a three-game winning streak following the away game of Incheon SSG (five scoreless innings) on the 1st and the match against Doosan in Jamsil on the 7th (two runs in five ⅓ innings). The season ERA dropped to 1.65 from 2.61 before the game.

It's simply a huge hit. Bae Dong-hyun, a former Gyeonggi High School-Korea-Japan Jangshin University student, entered the professional stage with the 42nd pick in the fifth round of the 2021 rookie draft. Bae Dong-hyun, who has received the first-team opportunity since his 2021 debut season, has a record of 1-3 with a 4.50 ERA in 20 games. Later, he completed his military service as a baseball team in Sangmu, but there was no place for Bae Dong-hyun in the Hanwha pitching staff.

In the end, he was called by Kiwoom in the third round of the second draft held in November 2025. In other words, Bae Dong-hyun was not listed on the list of 35 people Hanwha wants to protect. However, Bae Dong-hyun has already tied for the lead in multiple wins this season. He stood shoulder to shoulder with consistent starting pitchers such as KT Wiz Caleb Boschley (33) and KIA Tigers Adam Oler (32) who won three games.

After the game, Bae Dong-hyun said, "I'm happy to break the team's losing streak. (Ahn) Woo-jin pitched one inning as a starter, and he wanted to protect his favorite brother. "It was effective to pitch intensively for the team's victory while taking the lead," he said.

He continued, "I'm happy to play the most innings in my personal life. "I was conscious of the record when I played the sixth inning, but I threw it as focused on the match with the batters as much as possible," he said, adding, "Somehow, I keep breaking the team's losing streak, and I'm happy to give the team a victory because of me, and I want to play a role in continuing the winning streak next time."

It wasn't a start, but there was no problem in the preparation process. Bae Dong-hyun said, "There was a difference between preparing as a starter and preparing as a second pitcher, but I tried not to be very conscious. "I just thought of protecting Woo-jin as it was his return match today," he said with a smile.

<© STARNEWS. All rights reserved. No reproduction or redistribution allowed.>

*This content was translated by AI.