Samsung, led by head coach Park Jin-man, will play its 15th game of the season against the Lotte Giants of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu on Saturday. With the remaining games underway, Samsung will play Lotte this week and the Doosan Bears in Daegu on Sunday. It will have a one-day break on Saturday and have its last showdown of the season with Lotte in Busan on Sunday. It will then come back to Daegu and hold two consecutive games with the NC Dinos on Sunday and Sunday.안전놀이터
Samsung lost both games against the No. 1 Kia Tigers at home in Daegu on March 31 and 1, failing to narrow the gap between games. The games took place from 4.5 games to 6.5 games. Notably, the team was leading 5-0, but failed to keep the lead and suffered upset loss, which left the team regretful. It failed to catch the tiger’s tail.
However, Park displayed stellar performance. Park hit a grand slam on Monday against Lim Ki-young. He also hit a two-run homerun in consecutive at-bats against KIA starter Eric Stoute in the game on Sunday. He achieved his 47th career 1,500th hit. Despite Samsung’s losing streak, Park alone had three hits, three homers, eight RBIs and three runs.
Attention is now focusing on Park’s achievement of 400 home runs in the KBO league. Park, who has 18 home runs this season, has a total of 398 home runs in the KBO league so far. Until now, only Doosan Bears coach Lee Seung-yeop (467 home runs) and SSG Landers Choi Jeong (491 home runs) have exceeded 400 home runs in the KBO league history.
After writing the record of 400 home runs in Korea and the U.S. against the LG Twins in Daegu on June 13, Park Byung-ho said, “I thought that if I hit 20 home runs ahead of this season, I can achieve 400 home runs in the KBO. I’ve never thought about my personal record before, but I think 400 home runs in the KBO is my last goal in my baseball life.”
Park tasted his first home run against Matt Blank at an away game against the KIA Tigers on June 2, 2005 at Mudeung Stadium when he was with the LG Twins. Since then, he has displayed full capacity after moving to the Heroes in 2011. Having hit 31 home runs in the 2012 season, Park sent 37 hits out of the fence the following year.
In the 2014 and 2015 seasons, he hit 52 and 53 home runs, respectively, surpassing the mark of 50 home runs. He was named the home run king in 2012-2015, 2019, and 2022. He is one of the most promising home runs players who have hit 20 home runs for nine consecutive years from 2012 to 2022 (2016-2017 overseas).
In fact, he struggled in the early days of this season. As a member of KT, he only had 0.154 hits in eight games of batting average in March. He never had a home run. In April, he elevated his batting average to 0.229 (eight hits in 35 at-bats), but he only had one homerun that he expected.
After moving to Samsung in late May, he only had a batting average of 0.187 (14 hits in 75 times at bat) in June. In July, he played in just seven games due to hamstring injury. He also had no home run. However, he changed in August. He had a batting average of 0.270 to 20 hits, seven homers, 24 RBIs and 11 runs scored. He has filled the gap between foreign hitters.