Kang aims for all-time catcher

By Baek Byung-yeul

With the Korea Baseball Organization’s (KB0) season passing the halfway point, Lotte Giants star catcher Kang Min-ho and NC Dinos first baseman Eric Thames have emerged as the top contenders for the home run crown.

The 29-year-old slugger Kang is leading the race with 23 home runs as of Monday. On Saturday, Kang hit his 23rd career home run in his team’s game against the SK Wyverns in Incheon, securing the lead. He is followed by Thames and the Samsung Lions Dominican second baseman Yamaico Navarro.

This season has seen a dramatic turnaround for Kang, who signed a record free agent deal with the Giants two years ago, worth 7.5 billion won ($6.7 million) over the next four years.

Despite the big contract, Kang struggled in the past two seasons, with only 148 hits, including 27 homers.

However, with the home run on Saturday, Kang tied his personal best home run total for a single season, which he set in 2010. Kang is batting .349 with a slugging percentage of .766, and an on-base percentage of .461.

With this home run pace, he is expected to break the record for the most home runs in a regular season by a catcher, which was 40 set by former Wyverns catcher Park Kyung-oan in 2000.

The native Jeju islander who had 67 hits in 58 games and 58 runs batted in (RBI), also has a chance to break the record for most RBIs in a single season by a catcher, which is 107 set by Cho In-sung in 2010.

Lee Seung-yoep leads All Star voting

With a month to go before this year’s All Star Game, Lions slugger Lee Seung-yeop leads the voting for the designated hitter position.

In the most recent All Star voting update, the KBO announced Monday that Lee, who recently hit his 400th career home run, a first for the league, topped the voting, garnering 568,157 votes from fans for his position. Lee is the only player who earned more than 500,000 votes among 120 candidates.

In the ratio of 70 percent from fan votes and 30 percent of votes from players and coaches on the 10 clubs, the All-Star Game, which will be between the Dream All-Stars (Samsung Lions, Doosan Bears, SK Wyverns, Lotte Giants and KT Wiz) and the Nanum All-Stars (NC Dinos, Nexen Heroes, Hanwha Eagles, Kia Tigers and LG Twins), will take place at Suwon KT Wiz Park on July 18.

Lee’s teammates also showed their strength in their positions -- rookie first baseman Koo Ja-wook leads by a margin of 439,397 to 193,850 over Wyverns’ first baseman Park Jung-kwon; second baseman Navarro with 494,910 votes; shortstop Kim Sang-su with 350,271; left-fielder Choi Hyung-woo with 412,264; and closer Lim Chang-yong with 407,235.

For the Nanum All Star team, Eagles outfielder Lee Yong-kyu has earned the most votes with 445,524 while Lee’s teammate, catcher Cho In-sung, 40, who hope to appear in his 10th All Star Game, also leads with 265,019 votes at his position. No Twins and Wiz players were mentioned as candidates for All Star team.

The All Star fan voting will go through July 3 on the KBO’s webpage at www.koreabaseball.com, the KBO’s online official shop www.kbomarket.com and the official home pages of 10 clubs. Fans also can cast their votes, using their smartphones through KBO’s official smartphone application KBO STATS.

Players and coaches in the league will cast their votes ahead of their games on Tuesday and Wednesday.