Lotte Giants ace Doubront struggles in regular season

Lotte Giants starting pitcher Felix Doubront has shown poor performance during his five outings of this season. He has become the only foreign pitcher with no single winning among 20 foreign pitchers currently playing in the KBO League. His poor record is in stark contrast to former Giants pitcher Josh Lindblom, who moved to Doosan Bears and is recording 4-1 with a 2.78 ERA this season.

There were high expectations for Doubront when he signed with the Lotte Giant as he was a successful Major League Baseball player with a career of 31-26 and a 4.89 ERA, claiming double-digit wins for the second consecutive season and being a World Series champion. Doubront lost only one point during nine innings in the exhibition game, living up to his reputation. He was named Giants’ opening day starter.

But Doubront turned into a totally different player in the regular season. He had a rocky season start by allowing four earned runs in four innings. The number of innings he threw has matched the number of runs he allowed for every game. In the match against LG Twins on April 6, Doubront had the worst pitching performance of the season, allowing seven earned runs during 2 2/3 innings.

There were expectations that this Venezuelan pitcher would get better once the weather starts to get hot, but he did not. Doubront had a quality start in the match against the Samsung Lions held Thursday at Sajik Stadium in Busan, but soon allowed nine hits and six walks, resulting in bases loaded for three times.


Bae-Jung Kim wanted@donga.com