Wiz Ace Cuevas Delivers Another Postseason Gem, While Counterpart Falters Again

SEOUL, Oct. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — KT Wiz ace William Cuevas lived up to his reputation as a big-game pitcher Wednesday, delivering a scoreless gem in a wild card game of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason against the Doosan Bears on Wednesday in Seoul.

Cuevas’ counterpart, Gwak Been, failed to flip the narrative as a pitcher who can’t get it done in high-stakes affairs.

The Wiz blanked the Bears 4-0 in the wild card game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. With this victory, the fifth-seed Wiz forced another wild card contest against the fourth-seed Bears for Thursday.

The Bears only needed at least a tie Wednesday to advance to the next round but now face the possibility of becoming the first No. 4 seed to be eliminated in the wild card stage.

Based on their regular-season performances this year, Gwak seemed to have an edge over Cuevas. Gwak had been 5-0 with a 1.51 ERA against the Wiz, by far his lowest ERA against any team this season. Cuevas, on the other hand, was 1-2 with a 5.79 ERA against the Bears this year.

In their postseason careers, though, Cuevas had a better track record, with a 3-1 record, a 2.87 ERA and a Korean Series ring. Gwak had been 0-2 with a 6.00 ERA in five previous postseason outings.

And the trend held up for at least one more game for both pitchers.

The Wiz jumped on Gwak for four runs on five hits and a walk in the top of the first. Gwak gave up a leadoff walk and then allowed four consecutive singles, as the Wiz took a 3-0 lead before the Bears knew what hit them.

Gwak allowed another run-scoring hit later in the first and grabbed his head in frustration on his way back to the dugout. He was gone after allowing a walk to begin the second inning.

Cuevas gave up two straight singles to open the bottom first but escaped that jam. And he did not allow another hit over the next four innings while striking out seven batters.

Whether it was a cutter on the inside corner or a sharp slider, Bears hitters couldn’t square up against Cuevas.

Cuevas saved his best moment for his final inning, the bottom of the sixth.

The Bears had runners at the corners with one out after two singles, and their two biggest boppers, Kim Jae-hwan and Yang Suk-hwan, were due up.

With the Bears crowd buzzing with excitement over a potential big inning, Cuevas froze Kim with a down-and-away slider for the second out. Cuevas then got Yang to whiff on a 1-2 cutter to end the Bears’ rally.

Cuevas pumped his fist on the mound and let out a primal scream. On his way back to the dugout, he fired up the Wiz’s fan section on the third base side, knowing he had more than done his job.

Cuevas said later he “had to let it out” after his emotions had been bottled up for six high-stress innings.

“I just wanted to finish it with a strikeout. I didn’t want a groundball or a flyball,” he said. “I wanted the strikeout to be able to not just pump the defense, but my teammates, so everybody gets hyped up and they keep on fighting till the last out. I just tried to hype everybody up, and the fans helped a lot.”

Cuevas threw 103 pitches, 72 for strikes. He attacked the Bears with five different types of pitches: four-seam fastball, slider, cutter, changeup and curveball.

Cuevas was an integral part of the Wiz’s run to the Korean Series title in 2021. He famously threw seven shutout innings in a first-place tiebreaker game on two days’ rest after the end of the regular season to send the Wiz to the Korean Series and then fired 7 2/3 innings of one-run ball in the opening game of the championship round.

He said there is no special recipe to thriving in big games.

“I just tried to put in my head that this is one more game,” he said. “I think that’s what keeps me in a calm mode and helps me to think about what I’m going to do during the game and not to put too much pressure on myself.”

Cuevas’ manager, Lee Kang-chul, said postgame that the right-hander’s performance reminded him of that 2021 tiebreaker game. Cuevas said he was grateful for the way people still remembered him for that highlight.

“It’s fun to remember that. It’s always fun to be able to at least go very close to what everybody’s expecting from you,” he said. “I do really appreciate the fact that everybody remembers me like that. It’s funny, but I never put that scenario in my head until I do what I want to do.”

This was Cuevas’ worst regular season of his KBO career spanning five-plus seasons, but in a win-or-go-home game Wednesday, the Venezuelan right-hander rose to the occasion.

Asked how many more games he’d like to pitch in the postseason, Cuevas said: “As many games as I can to win the Korean Series. I don’t care about how many games. I just want to win.”

(Yonhap)