He became the home run king despite using Jamsil Stadium, the largest in Korean professional baseball, as his home. However, the left-handed hitter, who was on a downward curve, now has to worry about hitting 20 homers this season. Can Kim Jae-hwan (35, Doosan Bears), whom manager Lee Seung-yeop shouted for resurrection as a task, really survive?
After joining in 2008, it took 8 years to become a perfect starter in the first team. After that, he became an indispensable hitter for Doosan.
Although he has had his ups and downs, he has never been as bad as he has been all season. This is his second season after signing a 4-year contract worth 11.5 billion won. Coach Lee Seung-yeop cited the revival of the left-handed Geopo, who resembled him immediately after his appointment, as a condition for Doosan’s rebirth.메이저사이트
Doosan accomplished the feat of advancing to the Korean Series for 7 consecutive years, but had the nightmare of 9th place last year. Among them, there was the sluggishness of the players I trusted. In his first year as a free agent (FA), Kim Jae-hwan recorded a batting average of 0.248, 23 home runs, 72 RBIs, and an OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) of 0.800, below expectations.
The new season kicked off in anticipation of the new coach. I needed to show. Doosan performed better than expected. In 94 games, he recorded a win rate of more than 50% with 48 wins, 45 losses and 1 draw, raising his hopes for fall baseball.
However, Jaehwan Kim had a different story. Suffering from severe sluggishness at the beginning of the season, he is rarely able to find a sense of good times.
Manager Lee Seung-yeop, whom we met at Jamsil Stadium on the 9th, said, “I hope players other than the center line will give their strength.” Baseball is a sport in which the odds of winning increase significantly if you play your role in the center of the batting line. Only when their performance becomes constant can baseball be calculated.
However, Doosan is not like that. Kim Jae-hwan has a batting average of 0.228, 9 homers, 34 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.700, and Jose Rojas is sluggish with a batting average of 0.229, 12 homers, 37 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.759. Yang Seok-hwan was also disappointed with 0.279 16 home runs, 53 RBIs, and 0.789 OPS, and to make matters worse, Yang Eui-ji (0.323 batting average, 9 homers, 44 RBIs, OPS 906), who played a role, was eliminated from the first team due to an injury.
While the reality of Doosan is that they have no choice but to rely on players other than the center batting line, Kim Jae-hwan conveyed a message of hope to manager Lee Seung-yeop.
On the 9th, Jaehwan Kim played a multi-hit match with a solo home run against Samsung. At the end of the 5th inning, where the two teams faced each other 1-1, Won Tae-in’s high change-up was attacked, and he hit a superior solo home run that reached 112.4m at an exit speed of 170.3km/h. It was the first home run in 11 games since the match against Lotte on the 25th of last month.
Kim Jae-hwan, who turned first base, roared after confirming that the batted ball had gone over. It was a room where I could see how much trouble I had been hiding because I was a person who seldom expressed emotions to my heart’s content. Director Lee Seung-yeop was the first to welcome Kim Jae-hwan back to the dugout, and his colleagues held a ‘beating ceremony’ that was so intense that Kim Jae-hwan got angry.
In the ninth inning as the lead batter, he got on base with a heavy hit after a fierce battle with Oh Seung-hwan that went all the way to 9 pitches. It was only in 11 games that he had a multi-hit. SBS Sports commentator Lee Jong-yeol said, “If this is the case, I think Kim Jae-hwan will come to life” and expressed his anticipation, “When he’s really in bad shape, he can’t even follow the pitchers’ balls. He’s following and hitting well.”
On the 10th, Doosan took a day off in the aftermath of a typhoon that swept across the country and went down to Daejeon to meet the 8th place team, the Hanwha Eagles. Hanwha is the 8th ranked team in this category with a pitcher’s ERA of 4.18. Every time they performed sluggishly this season, they exploded one by one, giving coach Lee Seung-yeop and Doosan fans hope several times, but each time, expectations turned into disappointment.
With autumn approaching, now is the time to come alive. Will Kim Jae-hwan be able to make coach Lee Seung-yeop smile, who is worried about the sluggish performance of the center batting line?