“I was like that when I was younger…but it was a waste.”
Hanwha’s free agent paragon Chae Eun-sung (33) was seen chatting with rookie Moon Hyun-bin (19) in the dugout after he struck out in his first at-bat against KIA in Daejeon on the 23rd. With the bases loaded and the score 3-0, Moon struck out on a five-pitch outside fastball from KIA pitcher Sean Anderson.
Chae Eun-sung approached Moon in the dugout. Chae was more disappointed with the process than the outcome. “There were a few times when I saw him (Moon) being too defensive in the scoring zone. The opposing pitcher was shaking a lot and kept throwing strikes. I told him that there’s no need for the batter to be at a defensive disadvantage when the pitcher needs to get into the game.”스포츠토토
Anderson, the KIA starter, got off to a rocky start, giving up three runs in the first inning. He gave up a walk to Jang Jin-hyuk, the batter in front of Moon Hyun-bin, but Moon let a fastball come in for strikes one and three and struck out on a 2-2 count.
“In that situation, you don’t have to pick pitches that are in the zone,” Chae said. You can be aggressive and not try to load the bases. With the bases loaded, you don’t need a hit to score, just a ball on the ground. It’s such a waste to come in with a bad count and strike out. It’s about not coming in empty-handed,” he recalled.
This is something Chae Eun-sung herself experienced when she was younger. “I was like that when I was younger,” she says, “but I learned from experience that I couldn’t hit in those situations. Through experience, you think that even if you don’t get a hit in such a situation, you will get a hit unconditionally. If you accumulate it, it becomes your record, and it becomes a plus for the team.”
After receiving Chae Eun-sung’s advice, Moon’s swing became even sharper. Since then, he has hit safely in five consecutive games, batting 3-for-3 with a home run, seven RBIs and one walk in 21 at-bats. He is a hitter who sees the ball well and makes good contact for a rookie, but he is also showing his decisiveness by boldly putting his bat out in the clutch.
In the fifth inning against the KIA on the 23rd, he slid Anderson’s two-pitch slider into left field for an RBI double, and in the fifth inning against the Changwon NC on the 27th, with runners on second and third, he swung at Lee Jae-hak’s first-pitch changeup but missed the second low fastball for a two-run double to centre field. The single, which extended the score to 3-0, proved crucial to the team’s victory.