BUSAN, South Korea - Lotte Fans are by far the best in the world. If you ever catch an away game on TV, you will hear them drowning out even the local crowd with their chants. And this week proves their loyalty to the club even more: Eight of the starters in the weekend's KBO All-Star game are from Lotte.
The Giants dominated fan voting. DH Hong Seong-heun lead the tally with 818,269 votes. Starting pitcher Cho Jeong-hoon, catcher Kang Min-ho, first baseman Park Jong-yoon, second baseman Cho Seong-hwan, third baseman Lee Dae-ho, shortstop Park Ki-hyuk and Karim Garcia were all named as starters for the all-star squad. If it weren't for Doosan left fielder Kim Hyeon-su and center fielder Lee Jong-wook, Lotte would have the entire starting line-up. Once again, I'll say it: Greatest fans in the world.
Now, back to the real world, where it really counts:
The Giants spent the week in Seoul and it wasn't very productive. The Giants won one, lost two, tied one and were rained out twice putting their record on the season at 41-43-3. And while it hasn't effected their place in the standings it was week stuck in neutral when they needed to get into overdrive.
The Giants are reasonably well entrenched in fourth place. Lotte is still a game and a half ahead of LG and a couple miles below the top three teams in the league. Injuries and weather have prevented the Giants from getting their season in gear --If I can abuse the metaphor a little further. After playing three through Thursday, next weekend's all-star break is a chance to get healthy and regroup for the stretch run.
The Giants suffered another scare on the injury front. Starter Jang Won-joon had an early exit on his Thursday start after throwing only four pitches. Jang complained of a back injury and took himself out of the game. He appeared to suffer a pulled muscle and is still day-to-day. It's unknown if he's going to miss any starts at this point. If the Giants can get lucky with rain outs, they might not need him.
The Giants started the week with a win from Ryan Sadowski. Sadowski was able to get the better of Adrian Burnside in their second head-to-head match up in the past week. It helped that Burnside was chased from the game after the third inning and was responsible for most of the damage inflicted by the Lotte offense. Sadowski tossed 8 1/3 innings of two-run baseball. He didn't give up any runs until he appeared to tire in the top of the ninth. Sadowski allowed only three hits and one walk while striking out five. To say the opposing Heroes had a rough night would be an understatement. Nexen had more errors (4) than hits (3). Third baseman Lee Dae-ho lead the Giant offense by going 3-5 with a pair of moon shot homers to center field. Lee drove in four and scored twice in the 9-2 win over the Heroes.
The Giants were stuck kissing their sisters on Wednesday night. The Giants were facing a 2-1 deficit in the eighth inning when shortstop Moon Kyu-hyeon lead off the inning with a double. First baseman Kim Ju-chan laid down a sacrifice bunt to get Moon into third. Cho Seong-hwan hit a sac fly to deep center to drive in Moon and tie the game at two. With two outs in the eighth inning, Lotte put runners on first and third when Hong Seong-heun and LeeDae-ho both hit back-to-back singles. The next batter, Karim Garcia, laced a line drive into right...directly at the Nexen right fielder for the third out. The game remained tied after nine and stayed that way after twelve.
Sadly, the Giants wasted a terrific outing from starter Lee Jae-gon. Lee tossed six innings of two-run baseball giving up seven hits, one walk and one HBP while striking out two. It's not every day that Lee tosses six innings of two-run ball. It's too bad the mighty Lotte offense couldn't give him some help. The Giants dropped the next game after Jang's early exit. The shallow end of the Lotte bullpen had a rough time in the 9-4 loss. Hong Seong-heun was one of the few Lotte Giants to solve Nexen starter Kim Seong-hyeon. Hong drove in three runs while going 2-4 with a double in a losing effort.
The Giants started the weekend series against the third place Doosan Bears with a pair of rain outs on Friday and Saturday. The Giants got back on the field on Sunday and had a rough time against Doosan pitching. Doosan starter Kelvin Jimenez enjoyed one of his finest efforts in his short KBO career. Kelvin threw a complete game and allowed only one run on four hits, two walks and one hit batsman while striking out one. Jimenez pitched to contact and it seemed like everything was a lazy fly ball or a slow bouncer. I could count the number of hard hit balls on one hand. Lotte starter Song Seung-joon dueled with Jimenez for eight innings. Song gave up three runs on four hits and four walks while striking out three. Song made a mistake with a runner on base in the fifth inning. Doosan third baseman Lee Won-seok clubbed a two-run homer and gave the Bears a 3-1 lead. Those were the last runs scored in this game.
The Giants get back at it this week in Daejon against Hanhwa. Lotte is 4-6 against the last place Eagles. Ryan Sadowski will get the first crack at the Eagles on Tuesday. The Giants only play three games this week thanks to the all-star break, which, considering the lineup, is going to look a lot like just another Lotte Game.
