“He can be Lotte’s starting catcher.”
Lotte Giants manager Kim Tae-hyung had kind words for catcher Son Sung-bin. Kim, a former catcher himself, is known for being incredibly picky when it comes to catchers, but he thinks Son has a lot of potential.
Lotte’s season was transformed by the surgery of free agent catcher Yoo Kang-nam. For now, Kim is rotating between two catchers, Son Sung-bin and Lee Jung-geun. It’s hard to tell which player is better.
In the meantime, Son Sung-bin hit a powerful shot. On June 7, he hit a huge three-run shot to seal the win against the NC Dinos. On June 20, it was a four-run blast that came too soon after his three-run homer against the KT Wiz. At that time, Kim became a hot topic when he showed a ‘dad smile’ to Son Sung-bin as he entered the dugout.
Kim usually doesn’t show emotions such as laughter even in the happiest moments, but it was different for Son.
Kim joked, “I laughed like a blind man grabbing a doorknob,” and then shared his sincerity. “I think he can be the main catcher for Lotte in the future, 토토사이트 추천 and I wanted him to have confidence in his batting with that one home run,” Kim said, explaining why he had the ‘dad smile’.
“I still need to work on my hitting. The area where I hit the ball is narrow. The bat is supposed to come towards the ball, but it flips to the far side. It’s hard to fix it now because it’s the season, but I think it will be fine if I have confidence and aim for the pitcher’s type.”
Kim’s advice paid off for Son, who hit a thunderous home run against KT on Sept. 9. In the third inning, in a 1B1S situation, a pitch from KT starter Benjamin was perfectly pitched, but Son kept the ball close to his body and quickly released his bat, sending it over the left-field fence with a technical hit. It was similar to the monstrous home runs of Park Byung-ho (Samsung) in his prime. It was Son’s first two-game homer streak in his career.
As a catcher, defense is more important than hitting. Especially in Kim’s mind, it takes a lot of hard work to get into the mind of the coach. “My defense has improved a lot compared to last fall,” Kim said. I was worried about my throwing and blocking, but that’s gone a lot lately. It’s important for a lead to feel good while playing. Coach Kang Sung-woo will help us a lot.”