KIA, which boasted the league’s top-notch offensive productivity last year, fell to the bottom of the league amid the fall of this offensive power. Taking the failure of last year as a mirror, the strategy of starting an all-out war from April to secure as many wins as possible has already gone awry.
As of the 17th, KIA recorded 3 wins and 11 losses (.273), and is at the bottom of the league. It’s still early in the season, but the -8 margin is very heavy. Rather, it is a worse start than last year. KIA’s team ERA (4.25) is not that far from the league average (4.10), ranking 6th in the league. In the end, the focus has to be on the offense, which is at the bottom (.608) in team OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage).
There was a predictable part of the decline in attack power to some extent. This is because Na Seong-beom, who is the team’s main hitter and the first-class contributor to the KIA’s offensive power upgrade last year, could not play a single game due to a calf injury. On top of that, Kim Do-young, the team’s biggest hopeful, who showed off an incredible sense of hitting in the opening series, also played two games and left for a long time due to an injury.
It was a strategy that the key players shared this vacancy and endured, but even that did not work. There is only one Ryu Ji-hyeok (.344) who is a top 30 hitter on the team, and among the players who played more than 20 at-bats, no OPS exceeded 0.800. Hwang Dae-in (.748) and Ryu Ji-hyeok (.744) are the only hitters with an OPS of 0.700 or higher.
It is very regrettable that Socrates Brito (31), a foreign hitter who was expected to fill the vacancy of Na Seong-beom, started poorly. Assuming that the performance for a season is fixed, rather, now that Na Seong-beom and Kim Do-young are missing, there should be a taste of leading the team by exploding energy, but they are staying with worse batting results than domestic players. The fact that the KIA line does not catch fire is also closely related to Socrates’ sluggishness. 스포츠토토
Socrates wasn’t too bad with a .273 batting average in his first 11 games. However, out of 12 hits, only two were long hits, and the number of walks versus strikeouts was small. As a result, the OPS dropped to 0.670. His batting average in scoring position is 0.111, which is a serious level.
In addition, there is a lot of concern as the play continues to be somewhat loose in defense and running. One commentator said, “I felt that something was missing from the demonstration game, but that energy continues until the beginning of the regular season.” KIA fans continue to sigh, from clumsy defense and running base play that seems to be lacking in situational judgment.
The KIA self-diagnosed that the base of field players has become stronger ahead of this season. However, there are still many players who need to go through a longer verification period. The absence of Na Seong-beom and Kim Do-young means that the existing key players must work harder to make up for it. Socrates is a key player in that. While the cheerful cheering song is not getting excited, whether it will become a hero or a traitor to escape the crisis in April can be an important proposition that holds the KIA’s season performance.