Kia Pannoni tosses 5 innings of 7-hit shutout ball in second game back in KBO

KIA Tigers left-hander Thomas Pannoni (29) pitched five scoreless innings in his second game back in the KBO.

Panoni started the game against the 메이저놀이터NC Dinos at NC Park in Changwon on Friday, striking out seven in five scoreless innings. He allowed just one walk.

Panoni gave up a single to Park Min-woo with the bases loaded in the bottom of the first inning and a single to Martin with runners on first and second. Against Kwon Hee-dong, he allowed a double steal to put runners on second and third, but induced a foul swing on a cutter to end the inning with no outs.

After getting into some trouble in the first inning, he got out of the second with two strikeouts to end the inning. In the third, he struck out two more batters to end the inning. His signature cutter left the NC hitters’ bats spinning.

In the fourth inning, Panoni worked a full count and gave up a leadoff walk to Gun Woo Park. He forced Park at second on Martin’s grounder, but gave up a single to left to Yoon Hyung-joon with runners on first and second, but mixed his cutter and fastball to get Park to ground out to second and third to keep the scoreless streak alive.

Panoni ran into trouble in the fifth inning. With the bases loaded, he gave up back-to-back singles to Kim Joo-won and Son Ah-seop to put runners on first and second, but he struck out Park Min-woo on a wild pitch and retired Park Gun-woo on a nine-pitch walk to end the game.

Panoni threw a total of 88 pitches on the day. He used a mix of cutters (40 pitches), fastballs (33 pitches), curves (12 pitches), and changeups (3 pitches). His fastball topped out at 147 mph.

Panoni pitched 14 games for KIA last year, going 3-4 with a 2.72 ERA. However, he was unable to re-sign with KIA and headed back to the United States.

However, after the two new foreign pitchers failed to perform, KIA decided to make a change and brought back the proven Panoni. Pannoni made his comeback on April 12 at Samsung Electronics and gave up two runs in four innings.

In his second game back in the KBO, he threw five scoreless innings, raising expectations for the future.

KIA Tigers left-hander Thomas Pannoni (29) pitched five scoreless innings in his second game back in the KBO. Panoni started the game against the 메이저놀이터NC Dinos at NC Park in Changwon on Friday, striking out seven in five scoreless innings. He allowed just one walk. Panoni gave up a single to Park Min-woo with the…