LG captain Oh Ji-hwan hit three long balls, including a home run, to help the team snap a three-game losing streak.
Oh went 3-for-5 with a home run, one RBI, and three runs scored while batting fifth in the lineup against Doosan at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Monday. LG exploded for 14 hits in a 7-4 victory.
LG snapped a three-game losing streak and reduced its winning magic number from five to three. There was one more to go, as NC lost to Hanwha on the same day, even with their ace Pedi.
After a 0-0 tie in the second inning, Oh Ji-hwan led off with a double to center. Park Dong-won followed with a double down the left field line to score the first run.
With the score tied 1-1 in the fourth inning, Oh also had a chance to score with a double down the left field line after the leadoff hitter, Austin, walked. Two batters later, Moon Sung-joo doubled to left-center to score the second run.
In the sixth inning, a well-hit ball with the bases loaded was thrown straight to the shortstop for a jumping catch. LG scored three runs in the sixth to make it a 5-3 game, and after Austin’s homer in the seventh, Oh Ji-hwan hit a 148-kilometer fastball from Alcantara for a back-to-back home run over the right field fence.
“I think my timing on Alcantara’s fastball paid off,” Oh said after the game. “There are only a few players on our team who have experienced a magic number. We’re talking about having fun with it.” Here’s the full interview.
-Is Alcantara confident with the ball.
Not really. I think I’ve always been preparing for the faster pitches, so I think I was ready for the next (fastball), the second one, the third one, because it was a little bit faster.
And I know Alcantara was a little bit weak against us, so I was able to be aggressive because I was ready for that fastball.
-Looking back at the home run situation.
It was a fastball. I think Austin had hit a changeup earlier in the at-bat, so… I wasn’t trying to be aggressive, but I was thinking that the fastball was the one he could throw anyway. I thought, “Let’s hit it aggressively,” and yesterday I actually hit it aggressively, but the results weren’t that good.
My batting pace wasn’t very good until a few days ago, and I was afraid that I would become more passive, so I thought, “Let’s hit more aggressively, because if I can’t hit fastballs, there is no answer.
-Before the game, the coach said it was time for the batsmen to step up. I hit three long balls, and the batsmen had 14 hits.
I didn’t really think I was going to hit that many long balls, because long balls just happen to be long balls. It was all about being prepared for the fast ball. I remember when we were always down in the count, we would face fastball pitchers and then (our hitting) would pick up. I think that’s a good thing.
-Your coach was ejected in the middle of the game. It must have affected the players.토토사이트
Actually, I think the fact that the coach had to go to such lengths probably made the players more united. He’s a coach who really thinks about the team and the players, so I think we were able to bond a little bit more in that regard.
I think (the coach) could definitely appeal to that situation, and there were a lot of things going on, but I think he acknowledged it and said, “We need to know exactly what’s going on, and we need to break the atmosphere, and we need to go.” In the end, I think it led to a good result because the next batter (Doosan) ended the inning the same way, and we had another chance, and we turned it around.