“You can hit as hard as you want. As long as you get a lot of points”… Taehyung Kim’s worries begin to disappear.

[OSEN=부산, 조형래 기자] Professional baseball’s Lotte Giants have been worried about their batting lineup since the opening season. Due to poor scoring ability, I often missed games that I should have caught.

From the opening until April 14th, Lotte recorded a team batting average of .243 and a team OPS of .638. His batting average in scoring range was only .203.5. Everyone was in last place. In particular, as the infield’s batting skills did not pick up, manager Kim Tae-hyung brought in Son Ho-young through a trade with LG. At the same time, it was not easy to gain momentum for a rebound. They also lost 8 games in a row.

But last week, Lotte slowly began to rebound from the hit. Last week, the team succeeded in rebounding with a batting average of .313 and a team OPS of .893. Last week, the team ranked first in both batting categories. His slugging power is also improving as he hit 9 home runs.

‘Hwang Borgini’ Hwang Seong-bin hit .529 li (9 hits in 17 at-bats) during this period. In particular, he surprised everyone by hitting three home runs in a double header against KT on the 21st. Jeong Hoon is also contributing with a batting average of .522 (12 hits in 23 at-bats), 1 home run, and 5 RBIs. Dong-hee Yoon (.350) and Ho-young Son (.346) are also improving their batting skills.

Victor Reyes, who was leading the team in batting, slowed down a bit with 2.69% over the past week, but has become a reliable player just by his presence.

When players score a point and return to the dugout, they high-five their coach. Lotte players also give a strong high-five to coach Kim Tae-hyung. After the high five, he shook his hand and showed signs of pain.

Coach Kim Tae-hyung said, “At that time, there were very few points, so once a point was scored, the players got happy and excited and hit hard. “If I had a lot of points, I would adjust it,” he said with a laugh.

However, he said, “As long as you get a lot of points, you can hit as hard as you want,” and added, “I hope you have confidence now. If your opponent is strong, you lose. Since the pace was so far apart, it seemed like there was pressure on each other. “When you throw well, you have to block and hit well to win, and when you don’t throw well, you have to hit well again to win, but you can’t be off-beat,” he said, hoping for players to play stronger and more confidently.

However, last week he led the team in batting average and escaped an 8-game losing streak. Since then, they have recorded 3 wins and 1 draw without a loss. In the first game of the doubleheader against KT on the 21st, the team caught up to 9-9 in a game that had been trailing 3-9, showing off the changed atmosphere and cohesion of the batting lineup.

If the batting average in the scoring range is improved a little, Lotte’s batting line can definitely rebound. Even in the process of showing good batting skills last week, Lotte’s batting average in scoring range was only 2014. But at some point, it will converge to the mean and regress. As the batting line is on the rise, this is also expected to improve.

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Hyeong-Rae Cho ([email protected])