Former Red Wing Rucinski to Start KBO Opening Day

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the professional baseball league in South Korea, begins play at 1 a.m. ET on Tuesday. ESPN announced today that it reached an agreement to exclusively televise six, live regular season games per week in the United States, beginning Tuesday.

Drew Rucinski pitches in relief on Opening Day 2017 for the Red Wings. (Photo: Joe Territo)

The first game the network will broadcast is between NC Dinos and Samsung Lions. The probable starting pitcher for the Dinos is former Red Wing Drew Rucinski. Drew was also with NC last season when he was an All-Star and went 9–9 with a 3.05 ERA in 30 starts. Wings fans may remember Rucinski as an All-Star reliever when he pitched for Rochester in 2017. He finished that season 2–6 with two saves and a 2.57 ERA in 37 games, two starts. After leaving the Red Wings, Rucinski made 32 of his 41 career MLB appearances with Miami, going 4–2 with a 4.33 ERA for the Marlins in 2018.

ByungHo Park with the Red Wings in 2017. (Photo: Joe Territo)

ByungHo Park and Taylor Motter are both on the Kiwoom Heroes, the runner-up last season. Park played parts of two seasons in Rochester while hitting 24 combined home runs and driving in 79 runs in 142 games from 2016–17. The Minnesota Twins granted him his release so he could return to play in his native country. He led the KBO with 33 home runs in 2019 and finished second with 43 homers in 2018 while pacing the league with a .460 on-base percentage and a .718 slugging percentage.

Taylor Motter with Rochester in 2018. (Photo: Bare Antolos)

Motter played 47 games with Rochester in 2018 but batted just .182. He was hit in the face while playing in the Dominican Winter League in 2018 but thankfully recovered in time to begin 2019 with the Independent New Britain Bees. He joined the Oakland Athletics organization in June to finish last year.

While the Heroes have no scheduled TV games this week, ESPN said it will show “highlights from all KBO League games…and are not limited to the games ESPN will televise.” The determination of the games showcased live on the network will be announced “on a week-to-week basis.”

Dan Kurtz runs a KBO fan site for English speakers called MyKBO.net if you are interested in learning more about the league and its history.

Go Wings.