San Diego Padres infielder Kim Ha-seong’s presence grows.
San Diego is in a slump with 2 wins and 10 losses in 12 games as of the 20th (Korean time). In particular, the team’s batting line is silent at the bottom of the National League (0.225), and on the 20th against the Boston Red Sox, it only scored 1 run with 5 hits and 3 walks, losing 1-6.
On the 20th, starting third baseman Manny Machado was placed on the 10-day injured list (IL) due to a fracture in the back of his left hand. It started when he was hit by a ball in his hand in the game on the 16th. Machado, who signed an 11-year, $350 million contract extension in February, suffered a sluggish batting average of 0.231 for the season and was injured.
The third baseman position vacated by Machado is being replaced by Kim Ha-seong. Kim Ha-seong played full-time as a shortstop in place of Fernando Tatis Jr., who left last year due to surgery and prohibited drug disciplinary action. In December of last year, Zander Bogatz came to San Diego for 280 million dollars in 11 years, giving up the shortstop and taking over as second baseman. However, he was moved back to third base.
Here, the batting order was changed due to the team’s poor hitting. Kim Ha-seong, who had never risen above the 5th batting order while playing 41 games of the season until the 19th of this month, came out as the first 2 hitter against Boston on the 20th. It was San Diego’s effort to overcome the scoring drought by putting Kim Ha-seong, who has been on the rise with a batting average of 0.283 this month, in the top batting order. Ha-seong Kim recorded 1 hit in 4 at-bats that day.
‘San Diego Union Tribune’ said on the 20th, “Coach Bob Melvin prefers a fixed batting order, but made significant changes to the lineup on the 20th. I went in at number 2 against James Paxton.”
However, as Kim Ha-seong moved to No. 2, he was concerned about the relatively weakened lower line. The above media also pointed out that “moving Ha-seong Kim and Jake Cronenworth to the top lineup further weakens San Diego’s weakness, the bottom lineup.”메이저놀이터
Ha-seong Kim has a lot of presence in the karate, but in the end, it is Bogatz, Machado, Juan Soto, and Tatis Jr. who have to survive the big contracts. The above media criticized, “These four only had a batting average of 0.242 and an OPS of 0.732 in 12 games where the team was lost 2-10.”