In this file photo from April 16, 2024, LG Twins starter Dietrich Enns celebrates after completing the top of the fifth inning of a Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game against the Lotte Giants at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jun. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — Over the first two months of his first season in South Korea, left-handed pitcher Dietrich Enns went from winning his Opening Day start for the defending champions LG Twins to having his manager declaring that his job was in jeopardy.
Along the way, though, the 33-year-old American has been trying to block out distractions and focus on his own performance.
On May 28, Twins general manager Cha Myeong-seok traveled to the United States in search of a new foreign starting pitcher. Teams in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) can each have a maximum two foreign pitchers, and at that point, both Enns and his rotation mate Casey Kelly had been struggling, prompting Cha to start exploring a new option.
In this file photo from June 14, 2024, LG Twins starter Dietrich Enns pitches against the Lotte Giants during a Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
Through 11 starts, Enns was 4-2 with a 5.43 ERA, while Kelly, in his sixth KBO season, was 2-6 with a 5.60 ERA.
Skipper Youm Kyoung-youb told reporters on May 28 that the Twins were prepared to cut either of the two starters, but he also said the best-case scenario for the Twins was to have both pitchers bounce back, given the scarcity of quality alternatives that time of year.
Enns happened to start that same day, and he earned his fifth win of the season by holding the SSG Landers to two runs on four hits in six innings while striking out nine.
It would have been tempting to assume Enns became extra motivated after learning of Cha’s plans. However, Enns only found out about the situation during an interview after Cha’s trip.
“I don’t follow the media much. Just kind of pay attention to what I’m doing from a day-to-day basis,” Enns told Yonhap News Agency on Thursday, before the Twins hosted the Samsung Lions at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. “I had no idea but I kind of mind my own business and I’m just here to do my job as best I can. And whatever the team does, that’s up to the team to decide.”
Both Enns and Kelly have pitched better in June. On Wednesday, Enns kept the Lions off the board over six innings and allowed only three hits. It was his first scoreless start since March 29, and Enns improved to 3-0 with a 3.10 ERA for June.
That start came a night after a near-perfect game by Kelly, who only allowed a ninth-inning single to the Lions in a complete game shutout.
It was a tough act for Enns to follow, and Enns said he was inspired by his teammate’s brilliant start.
“I was cheering for him the whole way, hoping that he got the perfect game. The fact that he had to settle for a complete game shutout, it’s not too bad, either,” Enns said with a smile. “I was really happy for him to go out there and pitch that well. And it just gave me a lot of confidence to go out there and be in attack mode, pitch to my strengths and try and get similar results to him.”
Enns said he appreciates having Kelly as his teammate. Kelly is the longest-serving foreign player in the KBO now, and no foreign pitcher in the league is as qualified as Kelly to give a first-year player like Enns advice on how to pitch here and how to handle life in South Korea away from the field.
While they were going through a rough patch at the same time earlier in the season, Enns said Kelly kept giving him words of encouragement.
“When things weren’t going well, he told me it will turn and you’ve just got to stick with it,” Enns said. “It’s a long season. Every season has its ups and downs. You’re going to struggle a little bit and then it’s, ‘What do you do to make those adjustments?’ because baseball is really a game of adjustments.
“If I could go out there and throw a perfect game every time, I would. But that’s not how baseball goes,” Enns continued. “So you’ve got to learn from your mistakes and find ways to get hitters out. So really just trying to go out there and get better each and every time out.”
In this file photo from June 2, 2024, LG Twins starter Dietrich Enns pitches against the Doosan Bears during a Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
Having previously pitched in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, Enns understands the pressure that accompanies an American starter in an Asian league. Those players are asked to hit the ground running and start dominating right away. Teams make sizable investments in such players — Enns signed for US$1 million, the maximum amount for all first-year foreign players in the KBO — and they aren’t shy about demoting slumping foreign players to the minor league or cutting bait altogether. The proverbial leash is short.
Still, it may not seem fair to Enns that his manager threw him under the bus after just a few bad outings. In April, Enns pitched to a 7.20 ERA in five starts, a number inflated by two particularly poor starts: seven runs on nine hits in four innings against the NC Dinos, and eight runs on eight hits in five innings against the Landers. Enns had a 2.81 ERA in three other starts that month.
He posted a mediocre 4.97 ERA in May, with most of the damage done by six runs in 3 2/3 innings versus the Kiwoom Heroes. Otherwise, Enns would have had a more respectable 3.32 ERA.
Enns, who has not lost since Youm’s announcement, said he hasn’t felt any added pressure over the past month or so.
“I knew things weren’t going as well as I’d like them to and I just wanted to right the ship there,” he said. “So I just wanted to pitch as well as I can and learn from my mistakes and put together my best foot forward, and really just help the team win as much as I can on my day and good things will come from that. So just try and stay positive each and every day and focus on what I’m doing.”
Enns said he isn’t one to be sidetracked by things away from the field, anyway.
“I just like to keep everything simple, just trying to go out there and do my job and let the hitters tell me how I’m doing rather than some of the outside noise,” Enns said. “If I’m doing my job right then, all things will go well. If the hitters are getting a lot of hits, then I know I need to make that adjustment there.
So I try to just focus on one single day at a time.”
As one good start piles upon another, Enns hopes it will lead to a second straight championship for the Twins.
Enns wasn’t around for the Twins’ run to the 2023 Korean Series title, which ended a 29-year championship drought. Having only seen highlights, Enns, whose most recent professional championship came in Triple-A in 2021, wants to get his hands on the trophy, too.
“We’re trying to win another championship here so that’s my main goal,” he said. “We have a lot of the same guys and same leaders in the clubhouse. Really just trying to be a collective group and not like 25 individuals going their own way. The best teams are the ones that come together and really pull in the same direction and good things can happen from that. So really trying to put together a good second half and fight for the championship.”
(Yonhap)
