Unpredictable start to KBO season
It’s still in early in the 2009 KBO season, but predicting the league winners is as hard as determining who will end up on top of the individual stat categories.

A total of 54 games have been played so far in the season by eight teams. Yet just three games separate the first-place SK Wyverns (eight wins, four losses and two ties) with the last-place Hanhwa Eagles (five wins, seven losses and one tie).

And the new tie rule this season has muddied the standings as well. The Samsung Lions and Heroes are tied for second with the KIA Tigers, while LG Twins and Lotte Giants are tied for the fifth spot.

The standings have been unpredictable in what has become one of the most competitive seasons in recent memory.

It’s a different picture than the past two years.

After the same number of games played in 2008, the Lotte Giants sat seven games up on the last-place Kia Tigers in league standings. In 2007, the SK Wyverns jumped to an early lead by posting a .750 winning percentage after 14 games, putting a wide margin between them and the last placed team - which had a lowly .200 winning percentage.

While the Heroes’ strong start has been impressive, the only team that has not fallen below fifth place at some point this season is the Doosan Bears.

And the Kia Tigers, who had been struggling with a slumping offense, has been lighting it up behind the play of Choi Hee-seop. The Tigers, who completed a three-game series over the weekend against the LG Twins in Jamsil, southern Seoul, scored 25 runs and hit seven home runs. The cleanup hitter, Choi Hee-seop batted an impressive .571 with eight hits during the series against the Twins. He had been batting .250 with 10 hits in his previous 11 games.

Several unexpected faces are sitting atop several key individual statistics as well. The SK Wyverns’ Ko Hyo-jun leads pitchers with a 0.64 ERA. The 26-year-old has been holding the SK’s pitching rotation together while the team’s ace Kim Kwang-hyun struggles. Ko is an eight-year veteran in the pros, but he’s not a household name. Ko previously failed to impress the SK coaching staff and had to settle for relief duties since a July 2006 game when he walked four batters and gave up five runs in one and one-third of an inning pitched.

But an opportunity came this season when injuries to C.J. Nitkowski forced the coaching staff to give Ko the start. He recorded 11 strikeouts in six innings of work and earned his first victory since the July 2005.

“Upon hearing that I would get the start against the Heroes, I couldn’t get any sleep,” Ko said after that game.

Hwang Jae-gyoon, a 21-year-old third baseman, is leading the league in batting average. Although Hwang is a natural shortstop, he was able to crack the lineup this year due to the absence of Jung Sung-hoon, who signed with the Twins in the offseason. In order to improve his batting, he went through intense workouts with his trainer and focused on his batting stance.

The work paid off.

Hwang has produced a hit in every game so far this season. He currently boasts a .468 batting average, ahead of last season’s leader Kim Hyun-soo. Hwang drove in the winning two runs in the Sunday game against the Giants.

“I don’t think I will do as well in the heart of the lineup. I would rather be the scoring runner than the one who drives in runs,” said Hwang.

And then there’s Choi Joon-seok, whose 117-kilogram (258-pound) frame was not easy to miss. Choi, though, lost weight in the offseason, sacrificing power for bat speed. After shaving off more than 10 kilograms, he has been impressive. Through Monday, Choi’s five home runs is good enough to tie him for first with LG’s Roberto Petagine and Hanhwa’s Victor Diaz.


source: joongang.co.kr