Doosan Bears Manager Kim Won-hyung Explains Decision to Start Choi Min-seok on Four Days’ Rest

Pitching on just four days’ rest after throwing 96 pitches in an international tournament, 20-year-old Doosan Bears starting pitcher Choi Min-seok surrendered four runs on eight hits over three innings against the NC Dinos at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, starnewskorea.com reported.

International Workload Preceded the Jamsil Start

Choi’s heavy workload began at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, where he represented South Korea and returned with a gold medal. During the tournament’s Super Round on Sept. 26, Choi threw 96 pitches across seven innings against Chinese Taipei, allowing just one run in a victory that propelled the national team into the finals. One day later, teammate Gwak Bin threw 111 pitches over 6.3 innings against Japan in the gold-medal game to help the team win gold.

Faced with a compressed schedule upon their return to the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), Doosan manager Kim Won-hyung mapped out a rotation. Starnewskorea.com reported that Kim intended to use Gwak once and Choi twice during the remaining games, factoring in Gwak’s later game time, the pressure of the final, and the strength of the Japanese team.

Manager Kim Won-hyung Defends the Rotation Strategy

Speaking to reporters before the Oct. 1 matchup against the NC Dinos, Kim acknowledged the physical hurdles facing his young starter. “Physically, there are no major problems,” Kim said, according to starnewskorea.com. “The only concern might be that he returned from the Asian Games and pitched on four days of rest.”

Kim defended the quick turnaround by pointing to standard professional rhythms. “However, over the course of a month, you sometimes have Tuesday games and Sunday games. We will control his pitch count to a certain extent,” Kim added.

The manager also noted that Choi held personal ambitions regarding the league’s individual leaderboards, as he was tied with Lim Chan-gyu for first in wins in the KBO. Kim believed the team's walk-off victory the previous night—which officially secured Doosan's postseason berth—would relieve psychological pressure on Choi.

Nevertheless, the plan unraveled after catcher Yang Eui-ji staked Choi to an early lead with a two-run home run in the first inning. The third inning proved disastrous, as Choi yielded six hits in a single frame, including an RBI single to Park Min-woo and run-scoring hits by Kim Hwi-je and Brian Crim.

Postseason Positioning Dictated the Urgent Scheduling

The decision to send Choi to the mound against the NC Dinos rather than affording him extended rest was driven by Doosan’s pursuit of fourth place in the KBO standings and preparation for the upcoming wild-card series. According to starnewskorea.com, Gwak is already locked in as the scheduled starter for the first game of the wild-card round on Oct. 14, leaving either Wes Benjamin or Choi to handle Game 2 on Oct. 15.

Had the coaching staff held Choi out against NC to grant him additional rest, he would have been ineligible to pitch in Doosan’s regular-season finale against the Lotte Giants on Oct. 12. More crucially, starting on Oct. 1 allowed Choi exactly five days of recovery before a clash against the LG Twins on Oct. 7, keeping him on track to pitch while managing his arm health.

By pulling Choi after just 60 pitches on Oct. 1, Kim limited his young pitcher’s exposure while maintaining the calendar needed to hunt both the fourth-place standings jump and the KBO win title.