No 10-game winners? KBO's first-half pitching landscape has changed.

As the KBO League reaches its halfway point ahead of the All-Star break, the first half of the season has largely belonged to hitters. However, the story has been very different on the mound.

LG Twins slugger Austin Dean and KIA Tigers star Kim Do-yeong have traded the home run lead throughout the season, while KT Wiz's Choi Won-jun has surged into a commanding lead in the batting race after overtaking SSG Landers infielder Park Seong-han, who dominated the category early in the year.

On the mound, the defining pitching trend of the first half has been the absence of a single 10-game winner. Unlike previous seasons, no starting pitcher will reach double-digit victories before the All-Star break.

KIA right-hander Adam Oller leads the league with nine wins, but manager Lee Bum-ho removed him from the active roster on Wednesday to give him additional rest, ruling out any chance of reaching 10 wins before the break.

Hanwha Eagles veteran Ryu Hyun-jin, Doosan Bears' Choi Min-seok and LG's Anders Tolhurst each have eight wins, leaving them with virtually no path to 10 victories before the first half concludes.

The contrast with recent seasons is striking.

Every season from 2022 through last year featured at least one 10-game winner before the All-Star break.

In 2022, four pitchers reached the milestone, led by LG's Casey Kelly with 12 wins. In 2023, NC Dinos ace Erick Fedde won 12 games while LG's Adam Plutko collected 11.

The following year, then-Kiwoom Heroes starter Enmanuel De Jesus reached 10 wins before the break. Last season, four pitchers had already reached double-digit victories by the halfway point, including Hanwha's Cody Ponce and NC's Riley Thompson, who each recorded 11 wins. Hanwha also received 10 first-half wins from Ryan Weiss, helping the club establish itself as an early contender.

Baseball observers point to the lack of dominant foreign aces as the primary reason no pitcher has reached 10 wins this season.

"Last year, Ponce and Weiss were overwhelming,” commentator Choi Won-ho said. “Over the past few years, there were also proven aces like Thompson, Fedde and Kelly.”

“Even hitters say there aren't any foreign pitchers now who throw pitches that are simply unhittable,” he added. “Once they've gone through the lineup once, they generally have a good idea of how to attack them."

Those inside the game point to another factor: increasingly cautious workload management.

Pitchers are now removed from the rotation at the first sign of physical discomfort. When coaches believe a pitcher's stuff has declined, teams frequently take the player off the active roster and give them a 10-day break.

"Compared with about 10 years ago, pitcher management is much more systematic," KT Wiz pitching coach Je Chun-mo said. "Once a pitcher reaches around 70 to 80 innings, giving them a 10-day break has almost become standard practice."

"If a pitcher skips one or two turns in the rotation, the number of starts naturally decreases,” Je added. “Over the course of a season, missing those one or two games can easily translate into the loss of several wins."

The numbers support that trend. In recent years, pitchers who ranked among the first-half leaders in wins typically made 17 or 18 starts before the All-Star break. This season, the average has dropped to around 16 starts.

That raises another question about whether pitchers are being forced to rest.

Being removed from the active roster can affect a player's free agency service time, making the issue particularly sensitive.

"Unless a pitcher's stuff has clearly declined, it's rare for the coaching staff to force them out of the rotation," one starting pitcher from a Seoul metropolitan area club said. "In many cases, the player asks for the break first. Of course, the coaching staff also has an idea of when a pitcher should rest."

"In the end, communication is the most important thing,” the pitcher continued. “Players have to be honest about how they feel. At the same time, even if a player doesn't think they need a break, there still needs to be communication if the coaching staff believes rest is necessary."

The All-Star game will be on July 11, and the regular season will resume on July 16.

BY KO BONG-JUN [[email protected]]