Eagles ace Ponce shrugs off rough KBO postseason debut

Few, if any, of the 16,470 fans packing Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark on Saturday would have seen this coming: Hanwha Eagles ace Cody Ponce getting knocked around early and often. Ponce labored through six innings and gave up his season-worst six runs on seven hits, including a home run, but his Eagles hung on to defeat the Samsung Lions 9-8 in Game 1 of the second-round series in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason. Ponce, the Triple Crown winner as the KBO leader in wins, ERA and strikeouts, had blanked the Lions in his only regular-season meeting against them in the summer but it was a much different story come playoff time. Looking back on his start Sunday in Daejeon, Ponce defiantly said he hadn't pitched poorly. "I think I made a lot of great pitches. They just made better swings on those pitches," he said. "I think that I performed as best as I could last night. I think that Samsung did very well with hitting and they had a great approach and they made good hits on good pitches and that's all I can kind of tip my hat to." Ponce said he will be ready if he has another chWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times