2024-04-30 21:43:08
Jeong-hoo Lee (26, San Francisco Giants) and Masataka Yoshida (31, Boston Red Sox), who built a friendship across the borders of Korea and Japan and promised to meet again in the Major League Baseball (MLB), will finally face off.
San Francisco’s Lee Jeong-hoo, who has to play 10 away games in the future, will first play a 3-game away game with Boston at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, starting on May 1 (Korean time).
San Francisco, with 14 wins and 15 losses and a winning percentage of less than .500, needs a rebound in this three-game series against Boston.
San Francisco scored 116 points in 19 games after opening, averaging only 4 points per game. The difference between gains and losses is -17, creating an imbalance between offense and defense. There is a need to increase scoring power even more, and Lee Jeong-hoo, who is placed in the 1st and 3rd batting order, has a big role to play in leading the attack.
Lee Jeong-hoo showed signs of slowing down at the end of April, but improved his batting ability by producing hits in all three games against the Pittsburgh Pirates from the 27th to the 29th.
This three-game series between San Francisco and Boston is attracting attention as it is a confrontation between batters representing Korean and Japanese baseball.
Yoshida, who entered the major league through a posting (private competitive bidding) a year before Lee Jeong-hoo, is playing in Boston.
Yoshida, a left-handed hitter with both accuracy and power, was often compared to Lee Jeong-hoo, a similar type of hitter. Lee Jeong-hoo said, “Yoshida is a batter who has a lot to learn from. His strikeouts were few and he walked a lot, combining accuracy and power. He also revealed, “He references Yoshida a lot.”
Yoshida played in 140 games last year, his first season in the major leagues, and performed impressively with a batting average of 0.289, 155 hits, 15 home runs, 72 RBIs, 71 runs, and an OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) of 0.783.
Yoshida’s success also had a positive effect on Lee Jeong-hoo’s advancement into the major leagues. Yoshida signed a $90 million contract with Boston in the posting, but Lee Jung-hoo surpassed that with a $113 million contract a year later, receiving the highest treatment among Asian fielders.
Lee Jeong-hoo and Yoshida are also close friends. They met at the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 and the World Baseball Classic (WBC) held last year and became close friends. She also followed and said hello through social media.
When the WBC was held last year, Yoshida posted a photo of himself meeting Lee Jung-hoo in private and wrote, “Let’s meet soon (in the major leagues).” That wish came true a year later at Fenway Park.
Both are expected to start and face off against each other. Lee Jung-hoo has been used as a key hitter since his first season in the major leagues. Yoshida, who was recently left out of the starting lineup due to poor batting, rebounded with 4 hits in the game against the Chicago Cubs on the 28th.
Lee Jeong-hoo and Yoshida’s grades are also similar. Yoshida’s season batting average is 0.275, which is slightly higher than Lee Jeong-hoo, who is recording 0.269, but the difference is not significant. Yoshida hit three home runs and Lee Jeong-hoo hit two.
(Seoul = News 1)
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2024-04-30 21:43:08