“I told him not to really say anything today and just watch.”
SSG Landers coach Lee Sung-yong smirked as he remembered Robert Dugger on the mound. The foreign pitcher had been struggling. Dugger, SSG’s newest signing this season, had a dismal record of three losses and a 14.40 ERA in four games without a win.
The last two games were particularly shocking. On March 6 against the Changwon NC Dinos, he gave up 14 runs (13 earned) on 12 hits in three innings. It was a tie for the most runs allowed in a single game in KBO history.
He tried to bounce back in his next outing, but it didn’t go his way. After giving up four runs in the first inning against the KT Wiz in Suwon on April 12, the coaching staff immediately changed his pitcher in the second inning. That’s how his season ERA skyrocketed to 14.40.
There are many factors that contributed to Duggar’s struggles, but the biggest one was his adjustment to the ABS zone. He had a “mental breakdown” when all the pitches he was confident throwing low in the strike zone were called balls. What he thought was a strike became a ball, and as the count dwindled, he began to chase overly elaborate corner pitches that ended up getting away. While he may not have had a stellar big league career, it was more of a self-inflicted problem for a pitcher with solid experience as a full-time starter in Triple-A to allow this kind of streak in the KBO.
The lackluster performance has created a strange atmosphere of early exit. Duggar was no stranger to this atmosphere. The mindset that he had to make up for it became a burden.
Lee and the coaching staff didn’t really offer any advice before Dugger’s start against the Incheon Kia Tigers on April 18. “Today, I told the coaches not to say anything and just wait and see,” Lee said. I told Dugger to talk to (catcher) Lee Ji-young and prepare for the game and throw whatever he wants,” Lee smiled. The team could not afford to be lax. If Duggar continues to struggle, SSG will have to make a decision. But if Dugger had struggled in his previous starts because he was thinking too much, I wanted to create an atmosphere where he could focus on what he wanted to do and not give any advice.
Fortunately, it worked. Against a strong Kia lineup, Duggar pitched five innings, allowing one run on three hits with three strikeouts and one walk. After striking out the top of the batting order of Park Chan-ho, Choi Won-joon, and Kim Do-young in the top of the first inning, he worked out of a jam with runners on first and second in the second inning.
Another triple in the third inning. In the top of the fourth inning, he gave up a single to Kim Do-young and a walk to Choi Hyung-woo to put runners on first and second with no outs, but he was able to efficiently get three outs to keep the game close, and in the fifth inning, after giving up a leadoff double to Han Jun-soo, he retired Han Jun-soo, Chang-jin Lee, and 토토 Park Chan-ho.
With the run support, the winning pitcher was removed, but the bullpen struggles cost them the win. Still, Dugger had a smile on his face as the team rallied for a 7-5 victory in the late innings.
“I’m happy with the way I pitched today overall and the team won, so it’s okay (not getting the win),” Duggar said, adding, “They have a lot of aggressive hitters, so my game plan was to work the count with my fastball and changeup. I stuck to it and it worked out well. I didn’t care about my pitches today, I just tried to put them in the strike zone as much as possible,” he said with satisfaction.
The 14 runs he gave up in the NC game was a traumatic memory that he will never forget. “It was probably the worst pitch I’ve ever pitched in my career,” Duggar said, adding, “Baseball is a sport of failure, and I tried to get over it with that mindset. I was mentally drained after that pitch, but I tried to bounce back by thinking about who I am as a pitcher and why SSG brought me here.”