Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung "I wasn't confident

Lotte, which was at the bottom, dreams of advancing to the postseason

Director Kim Tae-hyung welcoming Ko Seung-min

The Lotte Giants finished the first half of the season in the lower middle ranks, but they have secured the momentum for a counterattack in the second half.

Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung (56), who confessed that he was not confident in the batting lineup from the middle of the demonstration game, said, “Our team has improved little by little, and I think it will get better in the second half.”

Although he spoke cautiously, he certainly expressed his desire to make a counterattack in the second half.

Manager Kim Tae-hyung, whom we met at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on the 3rd, a day before the end of the first half of the 2024 KBO League professional baseball season, said, “The pre-season plan was messed up at the beginning of the season. However, there is no season that goes as the manager originally planned.” He added, “We went through a difficult time, but the composition of both the fielders and pitchers is improving.“

This is a compressed expression of Lotte’s performance graph in the first half of this year.

Lotte, which had been hovering between 9th and 10th place until May, rebounded in June with the highest winning percentage among the 10 teams at 0.609 (14 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw).

They are still in 7th place as of the 2nd, but the gap with 5th place SSG Landers is not that big at 3 games.

Lotte fans have been hoping for the appointment of Manager Kim Tae-hyung since the end of the 2023 season.

As the fans hoped, Coach Kim Tae-hyung took over the reins of Lotte, and even when the team was in the lower ranks at the beginning of the season, many fans showed their support for Coach Kim Tae-hyung.

As Lotte’s momentum continues to grow, voices cheering for manager Kim Tae-hyung are growing louder.

Lotte fans were delighted to see the team grow stronger as young pitchers including Hwang Seong-bin, Yoon Dong-hee, Na Seung-yeop, and Ko Seung-min, as well as transfer player Son Ho-young, became regulars.

Coach Kim said, “As the young players settled in, their confidence grew, and as their individual records improved, the team gained strength,” and added, “I think we’re on a good roll. It wasn’t me, it was the players who did well.”

However, Coach Kim also feels proud when he sees the young players who have become the team’s mainstays. 스포츠 토토사이트

When asked by reporters to pick the best player for the first half, Manager Kim started off by saying, “I’m really grateful to Victor Reyes, the foreign hitter who played in all the games,” and as the conversation continued, he mentioned Hwang Seong-bin, Ko Seung-min, Na Seung-yeop, and Yoon Dong-hee one after another.

Director Kim is a ‘forward-looking leader.’

Even after taking charge of the Doosan Bears and achieving the feat of advancing to the Korean Series for seven consecutive seasons, Manager Kim said, “We have to leave the past in the past and look to the present and the future.”

Even this year, which had a brilliant June, Director Kim looked ahead and said, “The second half is important.”

The second half of Lotte’s season is a mix of hope and concern.

Manager Kim said, “Catcher Yoo Kang-nam is feeling pain (in his hamstring) again, and Son Ho-young (who suffered a thigh injury) will also take time to return,” and “If foreign starter Charlie Barnes, who felt pain in his thigh, returns, we can move Han Hyun-hee to the middle. The middle will definitely become stronger.”

As coach Kim Tae-hyung said, the second half of the season may not go as planned by the manager.

However, Director Kim Tae-hyung’s expression became much brighter than before the start of the first half. 스포츠토토사이트