Players who have played baseball for a long time always say this. They say that baseball is too difficult. They have already learned the theory and know how to correct problems when they find them. However, they are agonizing over the fact that baseball is not going their way. The same goes for Samsung Lions foreign hitter David McKinnon.메이저놀이터
He is MacKinnon who entered Korea this year. Having learned Asian baseball by playing for the Seibu Lions, a Japanese professional baseball league, before his debut in the KBO League, MacKinnon seemed to be quickly incorporating into the Korean arena. Looking at his early performances in the season, MacKinnon’s Korean dream seemed to become a reality. Through April, MacKinnon’s on-base hit ratio of 0.369 (38 hits in 103 times at bat) in 27 games was 0.463 on-base plus slugging ratio of 0.485 OPS (on-base plus slugging ratio). That was it, however.
McKinnon has been on the decline since May. Although he failed to hit long balls, he has never shown off his instinct to get on base, boasting of his contact ability and good eyesight. McKinnon’s May performance was only 0.272 (18 hits in 92 times at bat) on-base plus 0.359 OPS of 0.72 (on-base hit) in 24 games. His performance since June has been even bleak. McKinnon recorded 13 RBIs, five runs and a batting average of 0.221 (17 hits in 77 times at bat) in 21 games with a 0.279 on-base hit rate of 0.286 OPS of 0.565.
McKinnon was also aware of his problems. “My performance was bad at the end of the first half. I was so lucky at the beginning of the season. As time passed, luck didn’t match, and the hitting mechanism was a little disrupted,” McKinnon said at the “2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO All-Star Game” held at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on Sunday.
“One of the good things about me was to produce fastballs with the ball in the center,” McKinnon said. “I took advantage of my strength in the early days of the season, but the more I played, the more I hit right in front of the fielder. There were some things that luck didn’t match,” McKinnon said.
As a foreign hitter, McKinnon was in a hurry due to his sense of responsibility to lead the lineup. Coach Park Jin-man also cited burden as the reason for McKinnon’s poor performance. Manager Park Jin-man explained that McKinnon also placed a bat on the ball.
McKinnon said, “I watched the video of myself hitting, and you looked in a hurry. My shoulders were open to the left, and I thought, ‘I’m in a hurry’ when I saw him touch the ball that shouldn’t be throwing the bat,” but he said he knew the problem, but that baseball didn’t go his way.
He needs ventilation. McKinnon hit a home run at the All-Star Game and enjoyed the festival. McKinnon had a hit after dressing up as King Kong in his first at-bat. Then, he hit a two-run shot at his second at-bat, which was a rare hit. McKinnon, who had two hits, one homer, two RBIs and one run scored in three times at bat at the All-Star Game, won the Outstanding Batter Award.
Samsung is also desperately hoping for McKinnon’s revival. At a time when Korean hitters’ batting pace dropped sharply at the end of the first half of the year, even McKinnon was struggling with poor batting performance, which made him suffer a headache. He once threatened the No. 1 Kia Tigers, but ended the first half of the year in fourth place (44 wins, 2 draws and 39 losses, winning rate of 0.530). If McKinnon’s batting performance recovers in the second half, Samsung can also seek a higher position.