It seemed to be the first time I had received such a question. It was the first time for a reporter to ask such a question. When asked if he had never heard from a coach or coach when he was in school, Kim Bum-suk of LG said he had never asked such a question. He looked curious as to why he asked such a question.
There was a time when right-handed players transformed into right-handed hitters when they showed talent in baseball. Student baseball leaders made attempts to turn right-handed fielders into left-handed hitters. It is advantageous for a baseball player to throw a glove in the left hand and hit the left-handed position, which is a little closer to the first base. Right-handed hitters are still typical in baseball stadiums.
Kim Bum-seok’s team LG alone has several top-class right-handed left-handed players, including Kim Hyun-soo, Oh Ji-hwan, Park Hae-min and Hong Chang-ki. On the contrary, Kim Bum-seok’s talent, which emerged in an era when strong right-handed hitters were precious, is becoming an “exciting signal” not only for LG but also for the entire league.
LG’s bench is making a plan to raise the resources of right-handed hitters, which have appeared for the first time in a long time, as if they are not precious. Among them, LG’s manager Yeom Kyung-yeop brought up the topic of batting order. He meant that although he considers Kim Bum-suk to be the fourth hitter in the future, he would not put him in the fourth hitter in a hurry.
Coach Yeom is approaching fostering Kim Bum-suk by taking Park Byung-ho (KT), who started his career as a major player after moving to the Nexen Heroes in 2011 after failing to bloom after joining LG in 2005.
When Park Byung-ho, who had garnered four homeruns in consecutive games during his time at Seongnam High School, played for LG, Yeom was also an LG front desk and coach. Yeom said that Park’s too strong a spotlight in every game slowed his growth. Analysts say that Park entered the fourth batting order too early under the pretext of “sense of batting fourth” also caused him to lose ground. In fact, Park was also a fourth hitter in 2009 with a batting average of 0.218 with nine homers and 25 RBIs in 213 at-bats.
As of the 11th, Kim Bum-seok has a batting average of 0.362 (21 hits in 58 times at bat) with three homers and 16 RBIs and an OPS of 1.000. Kim Bum-seok, who is below the standard batsman’s batting average and the highest in the OPS team, did not play at bat as the fourth batter.
He has yet to show any difference in batting order. Kim has posted a batting average of 0.276 as he entered 36 times at bat as a sixth batter. He posted a batting average of 0.462 as a fifth batter with 14 times at bat, and a batting average of 0.385 as a third batter with 13 times at bat. Rather, he displayed good results in situations where the weight of batting order was high.
Perhaps this is Kim’s talent, too. Being able to play his game anywhere without the pressure of batting order and numbers is also a huge talent in professional baseball, where many fans and media coexist.
For LG, right-handed hitters have traditionally been prized. To find right-handed hitters who led the team, including Kim Dong-soo, the rookie of the year in 1990, and Han Dae-hwa, a Haitai native who led the team to win the title in 1994, it must go a long way to find their roots. LG is waiting carefully for the day when Kim Bum-suk will change the history of right-handed hitters in the team.
BY: 토토