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| Drew Rucinski of the NC Dinos. (Photo from Tulsa News) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] SEOUL: Three starts into the 2022 season, Drew Rucinski of the NC Dinos leads the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) with a miniscule 0.45 ERA. Remarkably, the right-hander has not yet walked a batter while striking out 21 in 20 innings. He has allowed just one earned run so far this year.
But Rucinski has won only one of those three outings, and suffered his first loss of the season on Thursday, despite holding the Kiwoom Heroes to a run in six innings. The Dinos dropped that game 1-0, already the fourth time that they have been shut out this year in 11 games. With Rucinski on the mound, the Dinos have managed just 1.33 runs per game. They have only scored a grand total of 25 runs in 11 games, the fewest in the KBO, and so it's not as though their hitters have been giving other pitchers more run support. Rucinski is one of seven pitchers with a sub-1.00 ERA through Thursday's action, and he isn't the one with the toughest luck in that group.
Rucinski's counterpart in Thursday's game, right-hander An Woo-jin, lowered his ERA to 0.90 after shutting down the Dinos over seven dominant innings. It was An's second consecutive scoreless start.
