There are 7 left-handed hitters in the best lineup. Although it was said to be the strongest batting line, it ultimately had weaknesses. The proverb in baseball that ‘left-handed batters are weak against left-handed pitchers’ is not wrong.
The LG Twins, who are in first place, are first in both ERA (3.66) and team batting average (0.282). In other words, both the mound and the batting lineup are the best.
A characteristic of LG’s lineup is that there are many left-handed hitters. There are as many as seven left-handed hitters in the best lineup, including No. 1 Hong Chang-gi, No. 2 Shin Min-jae, No. 3 Kim Hyun-soo, No. 5 Moon Bo-kyung, No. 6 Oh Ji-hwan, No. 8 Moon Seong-ju, and No. 9 Park Hae-min. There are only two right-handed hitters: #4 Austin Dean and #7 Park Dong-won.
LG coach Yeom Kyung-yeop had been thinking a lot about the batting order before the season. So, I planned a lineup that would use a lot of right-handed hitters to give the starting pitchers a break sometimes when the opponent’s left-handed pitcher comes out. Kim Min-seong, Lee Jae-won, Son Ho-young, etc. could replace Moon Bo-kyung, Oh Ji-hwan, and Moon Seong-ju.
Several times during the season, there were lineups with a lot of right-handed hitters, but Coach Yeom stuck to the best lineup for left-handed pitchers toward the end of the season. Coach Yeom explained, “In the end, in the postseason, you have to go with the best lineup regardless of the type of opponent’s starter, so there is no need to platoon.”
Even though there are many left-handed batters, the strength of LG’s batting lineup was that they were good at targeting left-handed pitchers. LG’s batting average against left-handed pitchers was .284, slightly better than when it faced right-handed pitchers (0.280).
Hong Chang-gi (0.336), Park Hae-min (0.328), Moon Bo-kyung (0.304), Kim Hyun-soo (0.289), and Oh Ji-hwan (0.277) also hit well as left-handed pitchers. On the other hand, Moon Seong-ju’s score was not good at 204p8 li and Shin Min-jae’s score was 204p6 li.
However, there was a wall that even such good LG hitters could not overcome. Representative pitchers are Wes Benjamin of the KT Wiz and Ricardo Sanchez of the Hanwha Eagles. Benjamin became the winning pitcher in all four games he pitched against LG this season, and he pitched extremely well with an ERA of a whopping 0.71. Even though he was sluggish, he came back to life once he played against LG. While he pitched 25⅓ innings, he gave up 14 hits, walked just two and struck out a whopping 26 batters.
Sanchez was also strong against LG. Sanchez showed excellent pitching, going 1 win and 0 losses in 2 games and not allowing a single run in 14 innings. Sanchez, who became the winning pitcher in the Daejeon game on June 10 by allowing 2 hits and no runs in 8 innings, also recorded 3 hits and no runs in 6 innings in the Jamsil game on the 2nd. Although he did not become the winning pitcher as he allowed the score to be tied in the bottom of the 8th inning, he was confirmed to be a definite ‘LG killer’. There are only three LG batters who hit against Sanchez, including Oh Ji-hwan (2), Hong Chang-ki (2), and Shin Min-jae (1).
Baek Jeong-hyun of the Samsung Lions also showed good performance against LG with 3 wins, 0 losses and an average ERA of 0.92 in 3 games, Kirk McCarty of SSG Landers pitched once and recorded 6 scoreless innings, and Roenis Elias had 2 wins, 0 losses and an ERA in 2 games. It recorded 2.77.
Most of the pitchers who showed great performance against LG were left-handed pitchers. Among the right-handed pitchers, the ones that stood out were Choi Won-tae, who had 3 wins, no losses, and an ERA of 0.95, and is now an LG player, and NC’s Eric Peddy was good with 2 wins, no losses, and an ERA of 2.12.토토사이트
LG can meet Benjamin, McCarty, Elias, Peddie, etc. in the postseason. In the end, you have to overcome them to hope for victory.
LG meets Benjamin once more right away. LG will play a three-game series against KT in Suwon starting on the 5th, and KT’s expected starting lineup is William Cuevas, Benjamin, and Ko Young-pyo, with the first to third starters all in action. In particular, there is a high possibility that he will face Benjamin on the 6th. Since there is a possibility of meeting in the Korean Series, you need to attack actively once to reduce the opponent’s confidence.
When asked about the three-game series against KT, LG coach Yeom Kyung-yeop seemed so focused on catching Benjamin that he said, “We have to catch Benjamin first. We have 5 wins and 5 losses against KT, but we lost 4 times to Benjamin alone.”