The LG Twins have parted ways with Casey Kelly (35), their “longest-serving foreign pitcher in six years,” and have signed a new foreign pitcher, Eliezer Hernandez (29).

The LG Twins officially announced after the game against the Jamsil Doosan on the 19th that they “have agreed to terms with foreign player Eliezer Hernandez for a total of $440,000 ($440,000 per year, KRW 610,000).”

Elieser Hernandez, a Venezuelan national, is a right-handed pitcher who joined the Miami Marlins in 2018. He stands at 6-foot-2, 185 pounds.

In 35 career Minor League AAA appearances, he went 11-7 with a 2.87 ERA in 159⅔ innings. In 2024, he appeared in nine major league games, going 1-0 with a 6.32 ERA in 15.2 innings.

In 99 career major league games (49 starts), he has a 10-22 record with a 5.10 ERA, totaling 300 hits (73 home runs), 20 walks, 99 hard-hit balls, 285 strikeouts, 182 runs (172 earned), a .255 batting average, and a 1.32 WHIP in 303⅓ innings pitched.

“Eliezer Hernandez is a complete right-hander with a borderline breaking ball, both fastball and changeup, and excellent command of his pitches,” LG said in a statement. ”He will join the team during the season, but we expect him to get up to speed quickly and earn a starting role.” “We will be requesting a 21-day waiver claim for Casey Kelly,” the organization said.

Instead of bringing in Hernandez in the middle of the season, LG chose to part ways with Kelly. Kelly is a longtime outfielder who is entering his sixth year in the KBO. He broke into the KBO in 2019 with the LG Twins, and over the course of five seasons, Kelly has appeared in 144 games with a 68-38 record and a 3.08 ERA.

This season, however, Kelly hasn’t been quite the 파워볼사이트 same, going 5-8 with a 4.51 ERA. In 113⅔ innings pitched, Kelly has allowed 131 hits (13 home runs), 25 walks, 69 strikeouts, 65 runs (57 earned), a WHIP of 1.37, and a batting average of .290. He pitched 11 quality starts (six innings of three earned runs or less).

Up until this point, Kelly had been the LG Twins’ No. 1 starter, but he struggled from March through May. In March and April, he went 1-4 with a 5.09 ERA in seven starts, and in May, he went 1-2 with a 6.55 ERA in four starts. It wasn’t just Kelly, but also Enns, who joined the team this season. With this foreign one-two punch unable to find its groove, LG struggled to hit.

In May, LG manager Yoon Kyung-yeop issued an ultimatum to the two foreign pitchers, publicly mentioning the possibility of releasing them as they struggled. At the time, manager Cha left for the United States. Kelly and Enns rebounded afterward, but LG ultimately decided to part ways with Kelly rather than keep Enns.

The signing of Hernandez is also a precipitation for LG’s fall baseball season. The KBO Baseball Rules stipulate that “foreign players registered on August 16 are not eligible to play in the postseason of the same year,” meaning that teams have until August 15 to finalize their foreign player trades in order to use them in fall baseball. So it’s safe to say that LG made a move before the end of July, the deadline.

Despite being released, Kelly did his best to redeem himself by staying on the mound until the end of the game. Even though the game was called a rainout in the third inning due to a torrential downpour, Kelly continued to warm up behind the dugout and in the bullpen, showing his determination to pitch one last time in Korea. After the no-game was called, he shared a tearful farewell ceremony with the LG fans.