aespa’s WINTER Was Delighted By The Result Of Her First Pitch At A New York Yankees Game

For the past few years, K-pop has increasingly grown in popularity in the US. This week, one of the genre’s fastest-rising girl groups got the chance to demonstrate K-pop’s stateside growth by participating in America’s pastime. On Thursday night (June 8), Uproxx cover band aespa‘s WINTER threw out the first pitch at game two of a doubleheader between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium while flanked by her bandmates NINGNING and KARINA (the band’s fourth member doesn’t appear in the video provided by the MLB).

Although she had to take a few steps off the mound to get her pitch over the plate, WINTER’s throw is pretty serviceable in the video and she certainly seems delighted by the result. Meanwhile, another angle that fans pulled from the group’s official Instagram shows that it was a bit high and wide, with the Yankees’ catcher having to take a step to his left to collect the errant baseball. Still, we’ve seen worse — way worse.

Plenty of music stars have been throwing out pitches lately; Japanese Breakfast, Megan Thee Stallion, Pharrell, and Saweetie have all had the opportunity recently and WINTER’s pitch is on the higher end of that spectrum — figuratively and literally. Still, the fact that aespa was selected for the honor bodes well for their future in the North American market, where they are due to begin touring this summer, in addition to playing Governor’s Ball in New York this weekend.