“One of the most important roles as a manager is to protect your players.”

Lotte Giants manager Larry Sutton, 53, was furious. He had been ejected and his team had lost in extra innings. In a situation where the team’s mood could have sunk, Sutton stood by his players.

Lotte played a home game against the Kiwoom Heroes at Sajik Stadium in Busan on the 23rd. After more than six hours of hard-fought battles, they suffered a heartbreaking 6-7 defeat.

The trouble started in the top of the fifth inning, when Lotte pitcher Shim Jae-min gave up a strait ball to Ronnie Dawson with his team leading 4-3. With the bases loaded, Sutton himself took the mound and made the pitching change.

Sutton then made a strong appeal to the umpires and was promptly ejected. It was an appeal to the strike zone.

“I got a lot of messages (about it) outside of the game, and I saw it myself,” Sutton said when asked about it by reporters before the Doosan Bears’ 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League game against the visiting Doosan Bears at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Friday, adding, “There was an irregular ball call, and that’s why I went out there and fought for the team and the players.”

“I respect the question, but I don’t have anything to add,” he said, when asked why he protested after making the pitching change first.

Lotte then tried to overturn the deficit with a tiebreaking two-run homer by Jeon Jun-woo in the bottom of the eighth inning under difficult circumstances, including the suspension of the game due to heavy rain, but eventually bowed their heads in extra innings with their manager away.

He praised the players for doing their best under difficult circumstances. “From the first inning to the ninth inning, it was a fighting game where we didn’t give up and fought until the end, so I’m very satisfied with the players,” he said. “Of course, there were a lot of things that happened during the game, and so did I. It was also raining, so the delay was longer than expected, but they still played with good concentration and didn’t give up until the last out.”

“Lee In-bok tried his best to do his job as a starting pitcher, and the players fought to the end as we came back with four runs in one inning,” he said, adding, “It was a game where the players did their best in their positions.”스포츠토토

Na Kyun-an will start for Lotte on Sunday. He will face Doosan’s Brandon Waddell. The batting order is Yoon Dong-hee (right fielder), Gudrum (third baseman), Yoo Kang-nam (catcher), Jeon Jun-woo (designated hitter), Ahn Chi-hong (second baseman), Han Dong-hee (first baseman), Noh Jin-hyuk (shortstop), Shin Yun-hoo (left fielder), and Kim Min-seok (centre fielder).

Lotte, which is mired in a two-game losing streak, remains in fifth place with 39 wins and 41 losses. They are just 0.5 games behind sixth-placed KT Wiz. Can they turn things around by stopping Doosan’s winning streak today?