“I really want to win the Korean Series this year.”
These are the words of LG Baseball’s foreign-born Austin Dean (30-photo). In recent years, Austin has been excelling, especially in LG, where the performance of foreign hitters last season was something to sigh over.
Austin is batting .333, which is second in the league behind SSG Guillermo Heredia (.346). With runners on base, Austin is an even scarier hitter. He has a .375 batting average with runners in scoring position. His 32 RBIs are right behind leader Keith Edison Russell (36). Against Hanwha on the 19th, with his team trailing 0-1 and two outs in the third inning, he pulled a Hanwha Moon Dong-joo’s first pitch and hit a game-winning two-run double to left field to give LG a 3-1 win. On the 21st, she also had a hit and a run scored in LG’s 4-1 victory. With Austin in the middle of the lineup, LG is tied for the league lead with SSG with a record of 26-14-1.
Last season, LG came within a whisker of the league’s top team, SSG, but failed to retake the top spot due to the “atrocities” of its foreign hitters. Rio Ruiz, who started last season with the team, struggled with a .155 batting average and one home run, prompting LG to pull the foreign player swap card in May. The decision was made after Ruiz played just 27 games. The same was true for Lobel Garcia, who was brought in as a replacement. Garcia struggled to a .206 batting average in 39 games, and LG was forced to play the playoffs without a foreign player.
With a foreign center fielder holding down the fort, the club must be laughing all the way to the bank. In fact, going into this season, LG was worried about their batting order after losing their No. 4 hitter, Chae Eun-sung, to Hanwha. There were also concerns that LG’s power was weaker than last season. However, Austin erased those worries.
“I’m aware of the atrocity of foreign hitters,” Austin said, “but I don’t know when my hitting cycle will go down, so I just want to have fun and play baseball for the team.” 토토사이트