Lee Steals 50 Bases for Third Straight Year
By Yoon Chul
Staff Reporter
"Super Sonic" Lee Dae-hyung of the LG Twins has made Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) history.
With his 50th theft of the season on Wednesday, the Twins speedster has now stolen at least 50 bases for the third-straight year.
In the eighth inning, the centerfielder, singled and then advanced to second base on Jung Sung-hoon's single.
With Twins import slugger Roberto Petagine in the batters box, Lee pinched third for his 50th.
The 26-year-old ranked third in steals with 37 in 2005 and then led the league with 53 in 2007 and 63 in 2008.
"To steal more than 50 bases this many times, it means you have to stay healthy. I'm very happy about that at this point," said Lee.
"Hopefully I can steal another 50 in the years to come and continue to avoid injury."
The Twins coach Yoo Ji-hyun, who holds the Twins' all-time record with 296 career stolen bases, said Lee has the three tools needed to be a successful base stealer.
"Lee has speed, he gets off to a good start and has good sliding ability, which are the most important things." Yoo said
"Even if the runner is fast, if he fails capitalize on the pitcher's timing, the success rate will go down.
``Lee analyzes the form of all pitchers to get their timing. And he has a quick start."
Yoo also said that in terms of pure speed on the base paths, Lee is the best.
"The runner should arrive to the next base in at least 2.5 seconds. But Lee does it faster than 2.5 seconds. He is the fastest player in 30 meters in the KBO," Yoo said.
Finally, when it's time to hit the dirt, Lee shines in that category as well.
"There are two kinds of sliding, head-first and leg-first. Head-first is definitely faster, but there is the possibility of sliding past the bag," he continued.
"Runners that have become experts of head-first sliding understand their speed and have good baseball sense. And Lee's sliding is almost perfect."
The league No. 1 base stealer's next aim is to hit the 60 mark for the second-straight year. He's currently 10 shy with 12 games to go.
However, Lee hasn't come close to the single season record of 84, set by Kia Tigers veteran Lee Jong-bum in 1994.
The Tiger also stole 73 bases in 1993 but had just 32 in 1995. He followed that up with two more seasons of 50 steals or more, but couldn't make it a third.