This is the power to hold on to 30%, Petage was eliminated, and top 30 NL hits Lee Jung-hoo is the only one who is not explosive, but steady

May 06, 2025

Lee Jung-hoo of the San Francisco Giants looks somewhere during batting training ahead of the Chicago Cubs match at Wrigley Field on the 6th (Korea time). AP Yonhap News

Lee Jung-hoo of the San Francisco Giants hits a left-handed hit in the top of the fourth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on the 6th (Korea time). AP Yonhap News

One of the reasons why Lee Jung-hoo of the San Francisco Giants is treated as a national star this season is that his batting condition is steady.

Lee Jung-hoo made one hit in four at-bats against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on the 6th (Korea time), extinguishing the silence of his three at-bats against the Colorado Rockies the previous day.

Lee Jung-hoo hit in his second at-bat in the top of the fourth inning, trailing 0-2. He took the leadoff batter and lightly pushed a fastball that flew into the strike zone outside 93.9 miles on the fourth pitch of opposing starter Matthew Boyd to create a line drive left-handed hit.

Lee Jung-hoo hits a left-handed hit in the top of the fourth inning and runs to first base. AP Yonhap News

As a result, Lee Jung-hoo became the only batter without a hit in two consecutive games among the top 30 players in the NL hit category this season. San Diego Padres Fernando Tatis Jr. was hitless in four at-bats against the New York Yankees on the same day, leaving only Lee Jung-hoo as he remained hitless in the first two consecutive games of this season following the previous day's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates (five at-bats).

In the AL, Yankees Aaron Judge, who ranks first in both leagues (0.414), has no hit in two consecutive games like Lee Jung-hoo. Among San Francisco hitters, Lee Jung-hoo is the only one of the 13 players who have 12 or more at-bats this season with no hits in consecutive games.

Of course, Lee Jung-hoo's recent hitting sense is not that explosive. Since the game against the Colorado Rockies on the 2nd, his batting average has fallen to 0.303 (40 hits in 132 at-bats) as he has only 3 hits in 16 at-bats (0.188) in the last 5 games. It fell to eighth place in the NL batting average, and the OPS plunged to 19th place with 0.844.

Lee Jung-hoo, who got on base with a left-handed hit in the fourth inning, is being forced out of the second base when Matt Chapman grounded out to second base. AP Yonhap News

However, there are no signs of a slump. This is because he is constantly making hits.

However, Lee Jung-hoo, who showed off his long-shot power by listening to the nickname 'double machine', had his last long-shot on the line drive double that he hit in the bottom of the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers on the 25th of last month. At the time, he pulled right-hander Tobias Myers' 93.6-mile fastball toward his body, hit a double that landed on the right line at 99.6 miles and hit the fence, bringing third baseman Mike Yastremski home.

And he had eight hits in 36 at-bats in the next 10 games until the game against the Cubs on the day. During this period, only eight of the 31 hits that were thrown into the fair area were hard hits. The hard hit ratio is 25.8%, which is a significant drop compared to the season average of 33.6%.

The more hard hits, the more hits and long balls, but Lee Jung-hoo's batting these days is not fast. On the contrary, it also means that there are many single hits that have been thrown into the empty space by choosing the direction well.

According to Lee Jung-hoo's batting average by pitch type, weaknesses against breaking balls, which were consistently in the 300s with 0.338 fastballs, 0.278 breaking balls and 0.2590 off-speed, are also slowly appearing.

San Diego sign Fernando Tatis Jr. AFP Yonhap News

Perhaps because of this, Lee Jung-hoo seems to have been greatly pushed out of the NL MVP competition.

According to the results of the 「2025 1st League MVP mock vote」 posted by MLB.com , Lee Jung-hoo did not make the Top 5 and was mentioned as the 5th of the other vote-getters. Tatis Jr. topped the NL in a mock vote involving a panel of 46 MLB.com experts, followed by Pete Alonso (Metz), Shohei Ohtani (Dodgers), Kyle Tucker (Cubs) and Corbin Carroll (Arizona).

In the AL, Judge unanimously won the first place vote from all 46 people. The vote was conducted in such a way that each expert picked five people and ranked first to fifth.