“What am I?”
NC Dinos Park Gun-woo started in right field and batted third in the lineup for the ninth game of the season against the Lotte Giants of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Sajik Stadium in Busan on April 1, and went 4-for-4 with a double, two RBIs, one run scored, and one walk to rescue his team from a three-game losing streak.
It was a one-man show, to say the least. Park started the game on a high note, drawing a walk against Lotte starter Aaron Wilkerson in his first at-bat with the bases loaded in the first inning, and then got a little lucky in his second at-bat. In the top of the fourth inning, trailing 0-3 and with no outs, Ahn Kwon-soo missed a routine fly ball to right field. Park Gun-woo didn’t give up and sprinted for the second base and scored the winning run. NC capitalized on the lucky break and scored to pull within a run of Lotte at 2-3.
Park Gun-woo’s bat continued to burn. In the bottom of the fifth inning, trailing 2-3, Park faced Wilkerson once again with the bases loaded and a two-pitch slider, and he smashed a two-run double to center field for the tying run. After drawing a walk in his fourth at-bat of the eighth inning, he led off the top of the 11th with another double, and NC scored three runs to throw the game out of balance and secure a thrilling 6-3 victory.
“The coach said on Sunday (July 30), ‘It’s been a tough July, so let’s focus on August once again,’ and the players had a good focus, which led to a good result,” said Park Gun-woo after the game against Sasik Lotte on July 1. “We have to end the losing streak and start August well, so we tried to do better after the break.” Park expressed his happiness at the victory.
Park Gun-woo, who was caught off guard by Ahn Kwon-soo’s missed pitch, had good reason to be. It was a behavior that came from his time with the Doosan Bears. “He’s close to me,” Park said, “and he’s always been good at that kind of play. I’ve experienced a lot of ‘I can’t see it’ calls, so at first I thought it was a joke, but it was that time of day (when the sun goes down and the ball becomes invisible), so I ran fast.”
Park, who had batted in the triple digits for eight straight years until last year, has had an eventful year personally. After returning from the World Baseball Classic (WBC), Park rebounded from a slow start in April with a .270 batting average. He seemed to find his groove in May, batting .303 and .293 in June, but he was cut from the first team before the All-Star break due to “attitude” issues. He is still struggling to recover from his hitting struggles.메이저놀이터
“I think this is the year I’ve learned the most in baseball,” Park said. There were many times when things didn’t work out like this, but there was no season where the good times didn’t last long,” he said. “The good times were long and the slumps were short, but this year, there were two days of good times and a week of bad times. So I put a lot of personal things aside. In fact, today (