No hit in 17 at-bats. Are you sure you're an outsider? Now I can see 30%. I can't control it, but...

Apr 24, 2025

No hit in 17 at-bats. Are you sure you're an outsider? Now I can see 30%. I can't control it, but...
Lotte and Hanwha at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan on the 23rd. Hanwha Floral hit in the first inning and got on base. Busan = Song Jeong-heon Reporter's songs@sportschosun.com/2025.04.23/



He was different from a major league prospect.

Esteban Floral (28, Hanwha Eagles) has had a terrible start this season. He had no hits in 17 at-bats for 20 at-bats, including no hits in four consecutive games since the opening.

At the time of his recruitment, Floral was highly regarded. After signing an international amateur contract with the New York Yankees in 2015, he ranked first in the team's prospects in MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and FanGraphs in 2019. He was expected to be a batter who can look at 20 home runs to 20 steals or 30 home runs to 30 steals due to his fast feet and long hitting power.




He was evaluated as the best prospect, but he didn't see the light in the major leagues. In a total of 245 games in five major league seasons, he hit only four home runs with a batting average of 192.

The Major League showed weakness in accuracy, but Hanwha gave a total of $850,000 in the KBO League stage, hoping that it would adapt enough.

Anxiety grew when the initial start was not good. He had a 'time of humiliation' with the performance of a foreign player who had been sluggish all the time in Hanwha being recalled.




Hanwha manager Kim Kyung-moon waited for a rebound, with Floral making a batting adjustment.

Floral also began to rise little by little. After his first hit against LG on the 27th of last month, he began to gradually increase his batting average.

As we entered April, the expectations continued. Having his first multi-hit game against Samsung on the 5th, he had 13 consecutive hits from the 8th to the 23rd.




No hit in 17 at-bats. Are you sure you're an outsider? Now I can see 30%. I can't control it, but...
Lotte and Hanwha at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan on the 23rd. Floral hit a double in the second inning and got on base. Busan = Song Jeong-heon Reporter's songs@sportschosun.com/2025.04.23/
In the game against Lotte on the 23rd, the hitting sense continued. After hitting in his first at-bat, he hit a double in his second at-bat. There was one strikeout after a walk, but he played a three-hit game by hitting a double once again.

With three hits on the 23rd, Floral's batting average has already risen to 298. Amid Floral's hard hit, Hanwha beat Lotte 6-4 and on June 21, 2023 (against Daejeon KIA)~He has played eight consecutive games in 662 days since July 1 (against Daegu Samsung).

After the game, Floral said, "I'm happy to have three hits, but the team's victory comes before I hit well. There is always no change in that idea. "I didn't even know it was a hit in 13 consecutive games. The goal is always team performance."

Now, if he raises his batting average by 2 percent, he can rise to 30 percent. The same goes for Floral, who is approaching a batting average of "300. I can't control the batting average, and I just think about trying hard every time. "

But I had my own greed. Floral says, "But I want to hit over 300," he added.

No hit in 17 at-bats. Are you sure you're an outsider? Now I can see 30%. I can't control it, but...
Lotte and Hanwha at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan on the 23rd. Floral scored when Roh Si-hwan hit an RBI single in the first inning. Busan = Song Jeong-heon Reporter's songs@sportschosun.com/2025.04.23/


This article was translated by Naver AI translator.