“I’m sorry I kept missing the scoreboard. It was intimidating.”
Kia’s Kim Do-young, 20, has shown all the signs of a second-year player, but there’s one thing he hasn’t yet proven. It’s the ability to get out of a bad at-bat quickly.먹튀검증 In the long run, the most important thing is to minimize the bad stretches rather than extend the good ones.
The general consensus is that over the course of 144 games, a leadoff hitter doesn’t have as many peak hitting periods where the ball looks like a watermelon as you might think. In the end, it comes down to minimizing the bad periods and contributing to the team in some way.
Kim wasn’t a starter last year because he wasn’t playing consistently, so it’s impossible to say for sure. This season, however, he’s been a solid third baseman, and he’s been on fire for a month, from right after his return in June to July. There were some ups and downs, but for the most part, he was on fire.
Do-Young Kim/KIA Tigers
For Kim, August was his first real test. In 21 August games, he’s batting .271 with 23 hits in 85 at-bats, 11 RBIs, 20 runs scored, and one stolen base. That’s a significant drop from his .318 June and .308 July. Of course, these are stats that make you forget he’s a sophomore. It’s hard to criticize a high school sophomore for a .308 performance.
However, Kim Do-young is different, and he is constantly beating himself up. When we caught up with Kim Do-young after the second round of the Moon-Kim match on July 27, he didn’t have time to bask in the glow of Moon Dong-joo (Hanwha). He’s not happy with his batting, and Moon is just one of nine starting pitchers for the team.
Kim Do-young said, “When it’s bad, my fastball timing is late. I can’t react to it. It can last longer.” Kim is batting .231 in his last 10 games, but he showed signs of life in the three-game series against Hanwha, going 4-for-12. Manager Kim Jong-kook was so impressed with his improved balance that he moved him from the ninth spot in the batting order to the second spot.
Kim Do-young/KIA Tigers
Still, Kim continues to struggle with late timing on unfavorable pitches after two strikes. She needs to narrow her strike zone and take a more compact swing. His late timing makes it harder for him to respond to fastballs, even though he thinks it’s an advantage for his changeup, but he still needs to time his fastball so that he can respond to his changeup in the so-called “middle of the zone”. Kim is still fighting with herself.
Another metric Kim is concerned about is her on-base percentage. Through 27 days, her season batting average is exactly .300. It dropped to the double digits and then recovered in the three-game series against Hanwha. In 44 games, he’s batting .300 with two home runs, 21 RBIs, 35 runs scored, 12 doubles, a .357 slugging percentage, and a .439 on-base percentage. However, he’s batting .224 with runners in scoring position. In any case, his batting average with runners in scoring position converges to his season average, so there’s no need to stress too much.
Do-Young Kim/KIA Tigers
Kim, however, takes responsibility. “I felt bad for the team because I didn’t get a chance to score, and I felt intimidated. I didn’t see the ball go out,” she says. Of course, “I’m trying to relax now. I feel I’m getting better,” but you can tell that she was struggling.
This is also a valuable experience and learning. In fact, even if I’m struggling with my batting in August, I’m still contributing more than expected to the team in the outfield and defense. He is only in his second year, and I wonder how far he will evolve through this experience and side effects. It is clear that he is a second class citizen from the mindset, so it is not normal to say the least. Kim Do-young is growing day by day and is a joy for KIA fans.