Is sad history repeating itself: Lotte is about to be haunted by the injury bug again?
Lotte is in desperate need of a rebound. Still in seventh place, Lotte trails fifth-place Dusan by 2.5 games. They recently dropped a three-game weekend series to last-place Kiwoom and need to turn things around. First, Lotte got a breather when two of its three midweek games against leader LG were rained out.
Speaking to reporters after LG’s rainout at Jamsil Stadium on the 23rd, Lotte manager Larry Sutton said, “I would say it (the rainout) helps our team. We haven’t had a rainout in four or five weeks. It’s positive in that the pitchers and fielders had enough time to recover.”
Lotte announced Charlie Barnes as the starting pitcher for the 24th against Jamsil LG Electronics. Aaron Wilkerson, who was originally scheduled to start on the 23rd, was rescheduled for the 25th against Sajik KT. In fact, the fact that Lotte’s hopes for a top-five finish are still intact is due to the strong performances of Barnes and Wilkerson, who started after four days of rest. Barnes has been in excellent form in the second half of the season with a 4-0 record and a 1.21 ERA, while Wilkerson, who joined the team before the start of the second half, has also pitched beyond expectations with a 2-0 record and a 2.12 ERA.
Now that the foreign one-two punch is out of the way, the team has yet to see an impact from foreign hitter Nico Goodrum. In 25 games already, Goodrum is hitting just .268 with a .345 on-base percentage, .330 slugging percentage, and .675 OPS with no home runs and 15 RBIs.
Goodrum’s real problem isn’t his performance. Right now, Goodrum is dealing with a sore hamstring. That’s why he missed back-to-back games against the Gokchucks on the 19th and 20th. In fact, Goodrum was left out of the starting lineup on the 18th for the same reason, but was forced to fill in due to Lee Hak-joo’s sudden injury.
“His hamstring is still tight,” Sutton said, “and it’s something he’s going to have to deal with throughout the season, so we’ll have to manage it well for the rest of the season.” “It’s not something that’s going to keep him out of the game, but it’s something that we’re going to have to keep an eye on.
In hindsight, Sutton’s words sound familiar. The same was true for Jack Rex, a foreign batsman who played for Lotte before Goodrum. 스포츠토토
Rex had a bad knee. He was dropped from the first-team roster on one occasion and never recovered. Sutton often said of Rex’s condition, “First of all, his knee is not 100%, so we need to keep an eye on it.” This was ultimately the biggest reason Lotte parted ways with Rex. Rex ended up batting .246 with a .338 on-base percentage, .345 slugging percentage, four home runs and 30 RBIs.