Giants cleanup hitters staying explosive in KBO

By Kim Hyun-cheol

Staff reporter

Every club in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) league has its own legendary cleanup hitters. The Doosan Bears boasted Tyrone Woods, Kim Dong-joo and Shim Chong-soo back in 2000, and fans of the Samsung Lions remember the 2002 season in excitement, when the trio of Lee Seung-yeop, Yang Joon-hyuk and Ma Hae-young blasted off.

Now, the Lotte Giants are challenging the cleanup Hall of Fame this season. The trio of Hong Sung-heun, Lee Dae-ho and Karim Garcia is arguably the strongest in the entire KBO.

Their performances have helped the Giants move up to fifth in the standings, in a great escape from the quagmire they were in at the beginning of the season.

Lee and Hong are now hitting .366 and .350, respectively, placing them second and third in the league trailing Park Han-lee of the Lions, who is batting .375.

Garcia and Lee currently share pole position in home runs with nine each, followed by Hong in third with seven. The pecking order is reversed for RBIs, where Hong leads with 43 and the other two share the third spot with 34.

The Lee and Hong share the league lead in hits along with their teammate Sohn Ah-seop with 48, and are also in the top five in on-base and slugging percentages.

These three are giving pitchers a torrid time with demonstrations of their slugging force. This season, the Giants' cleanups have combined for 25 home runs so far, accounting for 64 percent of the team's total.

Their number of homers is equal to or outnumbers the long ball totals of three league teams, as the Nexen Heroes, Kia Tigers and LG Twins, who have 25, 21 and 20 home runs overall up to date.

All three have claimed personal honors in the league before, including Lee's triple-crown in 2006. However, they came back stronger with improved form.

Lee, a pivotal hitter for the team for years, is leading the squad with mature leadership after being held back a little last year. Recently the 27-year-old infielder has even shaved his head to encourage his teammates, with some key players on the injured list.

Hong, a talented hitter but known to have insufficient power, came back in a shocking transformation as the league's leading hard hitter.

Before this season, his best home run tally stood at just 18 in 2002. This year he has already hit 7 home runs 36 games into the 133 fixture season.

Garcia is emerging as a new threat to pitchers, as he has refined his previous ``all-or-nothing'' batting style to pick up more pitches. His strikeouts nearly doubled his walks and hits-by-pitch for the last two seasons, but the rate has shrunk to 30:22 this year so far.