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| Samsung Lions designated hitter Lee Seung-yuop celebrates his 450th home run with teammates in the dugout at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on Sunday. / Yonhap |
By Kang Hyun-kyung
The Samsung Lions have awakened from a deep sleep and finally broke their winning streak drought.
Earlier last week, the Lions edged out the SK Wyverns twice in a row and won back-to-back games for the first time in 232 days.
The club, which was the four-time Korean Series champion between 2011 and 2014 and five-time winner of the regular season from 2011 to 2015, became unstoppable. The Lions swept the three games against the Hanwha Eagles that followed their showdown with the Wyverns.
Four Lions are behind the winning streak _ designated hitter Lee Seung-yuop, outfielder Koo Ja-wook, infielder Darin Ruf and captain Kim Sang-soo.
Lee's bat was on fire. Last week he batted .318 with two home runs and five RBIs. He hit his 450th home run in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) League in a game against the Eagles on Sunday. The slugger hit a solo home run off Eagles reliever Song Chang-sik in the six inning, following his teammate Darin Ruf's two-run homer.
Lee has the KBO's all-time home run record. The runner-up is retired Lions player Yang Joon-hyuk who hit 351 homers during his KBO career.
Lee kept a low-profile and didn't reveal his excitement about the record. He said he was happy because his record home run came in a game where his team won.
"I knew my home run was the 450th but honestly I had no special feelings about it," he said in an interview after the game. "I may have felt differently if my home run records reached hundreds, such as 200 or 300. But it's true that the unit of fifties is less exciting than the hundredth."
Lee's home run total in the KBO and the Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball League together is 609.
Lee offered an apology to baseball fans for a bench-clearing brawl that occurred between the Lions and the Eagles on Sunday.
"I felt sorry for those fans. They were here to watch a baseball game but we players got involved in a fight before the fans which is always inappropriate," he said.
Players of the two clubs got in a fight in the third inning after Eagles cleanup hitter Kim Tae-kyun was hit with a pitch thrown by Lions pitcher Yun Sung-hwan at Hanwha Eagles Park in Daejeon.
Kim and Yun appeared to have bad feelings toward each other. The Eagles slugger kept glaring at Yun while walking toward first base and suddenly headed toward the Lions pitcher.
As tensions rose between the two players, their teammates cleared their dugouts wanting to brawl on the field. There was no clash this time, though, and the players returned to their dugouts. Their tensions exploded again when the next Eagles batter Wilin Rosario was at the plate. Rosario was hit with a pitch by the Lions pitcher. The Dominican Republic-born player threw down his bat and headed toward Yun, an act deterred by the home plate umpire. But the players of the two teams cleared their dugouts again spoiling for a brawl on field which eventually led to a clash. Two Eagles players and two Lions players were expelled from play and the game went on.
The KBO's disciplinary committee met on Tuesday to review the video of the brawl to determine if they should punish other players.
Eagles pitcher Carlos Villanueva, who charged and attacked Lions pitcher Yun Sung-hwan after his teammate Rosario was hit by a pitch, was suspended six games, as was Yun. Eagles outfielder Jung Hyun-seok was suspended five games and Lions pitcher Zach Petrick was fined 2 million won for his involvement in the brawl. Two Lions coaching staff __ Kang Bong-gyu and Kim Jae-geol __ received five-game suspensions with 3 million won in fines.
The brawl on Sunday, meanwhile, helped the Lions unite and make an upset win.
Darin Ruf is another Lion whose role was critical to his team's winning streak. His batting average last week was .328. He hit two home runs with six RBIs.
The return of shortstop Kim Sang-soo also made a difference for the Lions. Kim's super catch in the eighth inning against the Wyverns on May 17 deterred the Eagles from scoring further.
The Lions captain pulled together a dramatic home run in the next inning. When he appeared at bat in the ninth inning with a runner on first, he was asked by manager Kim Han-soo in the dugout to slash a fake bunt. He squared around to bunt and pulled the bat back and took a shot. The ball he hit fell outside the fence off left field. With his two-run homer, the Lions won 5-3.
The Lions showed signs of rebounding after Kim rejoined the team in May after the treatment of his ankle ligament.
Koo Ja-wook also helped the Lions move forward. He hit home runs two days in a row against the Eagles. He hit much better after manager Kim moved Koo in the batting order from third to sixth. Kim was quoted as saying he readjusted the batting order to help Koo let go of the pressure of being third, a strategy that worked.
The Lions are still the lowest-ranked team with 12 wins, 29 defeats and two draws in 43 games. But they have rebounded since last week.
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