When will Jeon Joon-woo, when will Barnes, when will Kim Tae-hyung?
The Lotte Giants of the Korean Baseball Organization were in last place until April. In their first season under new manager Kim Tae-hyung, the Giants were plagued by unexpected injuries and poor performances from their envisioned key players. By April, Lotte was the only team in the league with fewer than 10 wins in 30 games. At the end of April, Lotte had a record of 8 W, 21 L, 1 D, and a winning percentage of just 2.7/6, less than 3%. They were 2.5 games behind ninth-place KT and seven games behind fifth-place LG, which was the fall baseball cutoff.
It was impossible to regain the lost wins, and it was difficult to figure out how to restore the win-loss margin. However, since May, the team has been slowly rebuilding, and head coach Kim Tae-hyung has begun to use his mercenary skills to win games when he can, and to win them at the right time. As a result, from May to June 7, Lotte has a record of 17 wins, 12 losses, one draw, and a winning percentage of 5.8 points. That’s good enough for third place in the 10-team league, behind LG (21 W, 10 L, .677 winning percentage) and Doosan (20 W, 10 L, 2 draws, .667 winning percentage).
Head coach Kim Tae-hyung has done a good job of identifying his squad and has built an optimal lineup. They are now trying to maintain a stable trajectory. What’s impressive about Lotte is that they’ve been able to maintain their winning percentage despite injuries to key players and the absence of their envisioned “Plan A” players. At the beginning of the season, the players who were supposed to be the mainstays and the energizers of the team went down with injuries in rotation, making it difficult to even field a lineup.
Infielder Son Ho-young, who joined the team as a free agent from LG and helped the team win games like a bat out of hell, was lost to a hamstring injury in early May, and the two eldest brothers in the batting order, Jeon Jun-woo and Jeong Hoon, were expunged from the first team on May 17. This deepened coach Kim Tae-hyung’s woes. Jeon was diagnosed with a microdamage to his left calf tendon. Jeong Hoon was also diagnosed with left hip hamstring tendinitis and will need two weeks to recover. Lotte was worried because of their important roles on and off the field, but the batting lineup minimized the gaps with the help of young players like Hwang Sung-bin, Go Seung-min, Yoon Dong-hee, Na Seung-yup, and foreign player Victor Reyes. The batting lineup became more organized and showed a dynamic performance.
However, the injury to foreign ace Charlie Barnes was more troubling for Kim Tae-hyung. Barnes resigned from Samsung Electronics on March 26 after 먹튀검증 complaining of pain in his left adductor muscle. At first, it was thought to be a minor injury, but upon further examination, he was diagnosed with a microdamage to the adductor muscle. In the end, he was told he would need two to three weeks of rehabilitation before he could return.
The loss of a foreign ace adds to the woes of a starting lineup that has already been shaken up by the struggles of Na Gyun-an and Lee In-bok. Lee Min-seok and Kim Jin-wook are showing promise, but they’re not the pitchers to count on. They’ll just have to hold on until Barnes returns.
First, Son Ho-young and Jeong Hoon are back. Since returning from the Sasik NC on April 2, Son has been on fire, batting 3-for-6 with eight runs (7-for-19), two home runs, six RBIs and a 1.271 OPS in five games. Jung-hoon returned to the lineup on July 7 against SSG and will get his chance as the season progresses.
The question is Jeon Jun-woo and Barnes. Jun-woo Jeon returned from two weeks of treatment at Ijima Rehabilitation Center in Yokohama, Japan, but his recovery has been slow. “The injury hasn’t fully healed yet,” explained coach Kim Tae-hyung. He was initially diagnosed 토토사이트 with a four-week recovery time, but as his injuries have yet to heal, the rehabilitation time is getting longer. “It will be the end of June at the earliest,” Kim said. For now, Jeon is on and off the field, focusing on his treatment and rehabilitation.
As for Barnes, we still haven’t heard from him. We will hear from him when he completes his rehabilitation and starts technical training, but not yet. “What’s going on with Barnes?” Kim Tae-hyung asked the club officials around him in frustration. “When he starts training, he will report to me. He hasn’t started training yet, so he hasn’t reported to me.”
Everyone is wondering when Jeon and Barnes, the two core players of the Tuta, will be able to return. But it’s Kim Tae-hyung who is most curious and waiting.