“I’ll bat in the cleanup trio.” Left-handed hitter Lee Jung-hoo of the KBO’s top club, the Kiwoom Heroes, has moved up in the batting order to a cleanup trio instead of a table-setter.
Kiwoom will play a three-game weekend series at home against the Lotte Giants at Gocheok Sky Dome from the 26th to the 28th. Before the first game of the three-game series on the 26th, Kiwoom head coach Hong Won-ki met with the media and talked about “signature hitter” Lee Jung-hoo. It’s about the batting order.
Lee was named in the starting lineup as the center fielder and No. 3 hitter. “Lee Jung-hoo needs to provide runs as a cleanup trio,” 메이저사이트 said Hong, “and I think he needs to show the same performance at the plate that he showed last season to help the team bat a little better this season.”
“We need (Lee) to show his true form in the center of the order to give us a boost,” he added. Lee has been batting at the top of the order recently.
Kim Jun-wan will lead off against Lotte. He will play left field.
“There were reports from the Futures (second team) team that his batting average and hitting performance were good,” Hong said of Kim, “so I thought we should make a change since the team’s batting lineup as a whole is sinking.”
The left-handed hitter has appeared in 13 games with the first team since the start of the season, batting 2-for-15 with two RBIs. His most recent first-team appearance came on April 4 against the Samsung Lions at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu.
In the Futures League, he appeared in 10 games, batting 4-for-17 with one home run and nine RBIs. “Our team colors have always been to harass the opposing starting pitchers to increase their pitch count and get them off the mound early, but lately we’ve been struggling to get on base,” Hong said.
Kiwoom went 1-2 in a midweek three-game series against the KT Wiz at Katie Wiz Park in Suwon. They won 3-1 on the first day of the three-game series, but lost 1-4 and 0-3 against KT on the 24th and 25th, respectively.
“When the bats aren’t hitting well, it affects the pitching and defense,” Hong said, “so we need to create more scoring chances.”