Small ball baseball that Lotte is aiming for. With this small ball baseball, Lotte endured April and continued its momentum until May.
However, there must be a space to breathe in the long regular season race, and that space must be made into a big explosion and a great victory for the other line. Currently, Lotte does not have this space to breathe. Squeezing out points and holding on has a limit. Lotte’s small ball also needs a shot. And you have to hope that the returning foreign hitter Jack Rex will do the role.
Lotte lost 2-3 after 10 overtime matches against Sajik KT on the 7th. A score was drawn due to an error, and a score was given again due to an error, only to tie the score in the 8th inning. However, in the 10th inning in a close match, Do-gyu Kim dedicated the winning run with a wild throw in the 1st and 3rd base.
This 3-game losing streak was the first 3-game losing streak in 60 days since April 8. The team without a long losing streak also qualified for the top ranks. The reason Lotte was holding on to the top this year was that there were no three consecutive losses. Lotte in 2023 is a team with relatively solid power and excellent resilience. Even within the team, I felt proud that there was no three-game losing streak.
Of course, there is no crisis during the season. Lotte came once at the beginning of the season and overcame it with 9 consecutive wins. In a situation where they maintained the top ranks without ups and downs, they are on the verge of a second crisis. The batting line is silent during the three-game losing streak. During the three-game losing streak, only four points were scored.
The cohesion of the batting line was high, but there were not many games that exploded hotly. The fatigue and stress of the entire team inevitably increases as the close matches are repeated. Lotte has already played 32 out of 50 matches within 3 points. After SSG (40 out of 53 games), the second most games were decided within 3 points.
After all, there is a limit to squeezing and holding on to points throughout the year. Although it is a batting line with a rifle unit character, it is still necessary to have an intimidating batter who can solve it with one shot. Currently, Lotte’s team batting average is 2.56, ranking 4th overall, but their slugging percentage is 8th and team homers are 18th, last. It is the only team out of 10 clubs that has not exceeded 20 team home runs.
The player who needs to show off his presence with long hits is definitely Rex, who recently returned from a knee injury. Rex was deleted from the first team entry on the 17th of last month. Rex has been suffering from a bad right knee since mid-April and has been playing games while managing the pain. Then, after being diagnosed with a micro-rupture of the tendon in his right knee, he rehabilitated and returned on the 6th ahead of the KT match.
But he’s going 1-for-8 in two games. He struck out three times. The Futures League rehab match came back after playing only two games, so the sense of real play and timing may not have fully returned yet. The batted ball itself has not come out to raise expectations. 먹튀검증
Hit production is important, but what we expect from Rex is long hits after all. Due to the composition of the current team, long hit production is inevitably reduced, but Rex must meet that expectation. He needs to be more aware of his role and aware of his status as a player himself. Rex only had two home runs, and his last home run was against Hanwha Sajik on April 27.
Lotte did not invest huge sums of 1.3 million dollars (down payment 200,000 dollars, annual salary 1 million dollars, incentives 100,000 dollars) in Rex and about 1.7 billion won in Hanwha-ho for nothing. Lotte is anxiously waiting for Rex, who hits long shots to turn the atmosphere around.