Who's gonna lose the trade? The roar of a half-thousand batter who cried...We don't look at the bottom
Jun 08, 2025
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Hanwha Eagles outfielder Lee Jin-young (28) smiled broadly after a fierce battle until the 11th inning of overtime. The moment when you need one point. Lee Jin-young roared with the final hit that rang his former team, the KIA Tigers.
Hanwha secured a 3-2 victory in the 11th inning against KIA in Gwangju on the 7th, setting the stage for its recapture of the top spot. Hanwha, ranked second, recorded 37 wins and 26 losses in the season, narrowing its distance to 0.5 games with the first-place LG Twins (37 wins, 25 losses, 1 draw).
Lee Jin-young re-energized Hanwha, which had been in a two-game losing streak with two hits and two RBIs in five at-bats. Lee Jin-young embarrassed his opponent by taking a timely hit to the left by KIA foreign starter Adam Oler in the top of the fourth inning to give him a 1-0 lead. KIA was a must-see game as it had a foreign pitcher, and it took a strategy to destroy Hanwha starter Hwang Joon-seo in the beginning, but Lee Jin-young completely twisted the idea. Lee Jin-young hit a timely hit in the left-center at the bottom of the 11th inning with two outs and a runner on second base when the score was tied 2-2.
Lee Jin-young said, `First of all, we were the last attack, and if we don't do it now in the second out, there's no situation to score at all. I think I came in thinking that I should hit it this time. I thought I was going to throw a lot of breaking balls, but after the strike came in among the fastballs, I thought I should just put it in front of the fastball and hit it. I think I just hit the center of the bat"How do you feel about the final hit?"
Hanwha players were more determined to win on the news that LG lost 1-4 in the Gocheok Kiwoom Heroes match.
Lee Jin-young said, `We're always working hard to get to a higher place without looking at the bottom. In fact, I saw the electronic display earlier today (7th), and just because LG lost, I think we focused more from the second half with the idea that we should catch one game first."
Lee Jin-young graduated from Sunlin Internet High School and started his professional career by being nominated by KIA in the 58th place in the second round of the rookie draft in 2016. I waited for the day when I took care of my military service early in the police baseball team and took the lead in the game, but unfortunately, KIA did not produce such a result.
The trade was a major turning point in Lee Jin-young's baseball life. Hanwha gave up pitcher Kim Do-hyun to KIA in April 2022 and made a 1-2 trade to receive Lee Jin-young and pitcher Lee Min-woo. Hanwha was a team that was constantly thirsty for outfielder depth reinforcement. At that time, Lee Min-woo was the core of the reinforcement, but now Lee Jin-young is flying.
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Lee Jin-young had already signaled a successful trade case by achieving 50 RBIs on his first 10 home runs in 2023. Last year, he played only 42 games and had ups and downs, and this year he also faced the season as a backup, but when the opportunity came, he became the main player by impressing Hanwha coach Kim Kyung-moon with an aggressive and active attitude. He has a batting average of 0.298 (48 hits in 161 at-bats), six homers, 22 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.848 in 52 games.
Lee Jin-young's bat gets fiercer when he meets his old team. He hit a batting average of 0.474 (9 hits in 19 at-bats), two homers and six RBIs against KIA this year. He has a batting average of 0.533 (8 hits in 15 at-bats), two homers and six RBIs in four away games in Gwangju.
Coach Kim Kyung-moon said Lee Jin-young is strong in Gwangju, "I think so. He's really good at playing here (Gwangju). That's a relief. Rather than being bad here, I hit a hit, hit a home run, so isn't it better?" he said with a satisfied smile.
Lee Jin-young said "Rather than playing well in Gwangju, I think it was Gwangju again when the feeling of hitting came up a little bit. The timing was good," replied humbly.
Hanwha is aiming for the winning series with ace Cody Ponce on the 8th. KIA will have veteran left-hander Yang Hyun-jong. Lee Jin-young had one hit in three at-bats against Yang Hyun-jong this season.
Lee Jin-young "Of course, I go in with the desire to win every game, but I like Ponce and Ryan Weiss so much. I think I'm going into the game with confidence that I can win it. I think we want to help more, and I think we can concentrate better on the desire to help a lot in defense and hitting. He vowed to do his best to win back-to-back games again.
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This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
