Kim Ha-seong (28, San Diego Padres) is showing no signs of slowing down, tying Ichiro Suzuki’s (50) Asian major league record of 15 consecutive multi-hit games. He ranks second in all of baseball in batting average in the second half of the season with a contact rate that is reminiscent of Ichiro in his prime.
Kim extended his multi-hit streak to 15 games when he batted leadoff and went 2-for-5 with a double and a run scored against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Petco Park in San Diego, California, on Aug. 8.
In his second at-bat against Dodgers right-hander Tony Gonsolin in the third inning, Kim pulled a slider down the middle of the plate for a single to left. In the sixth inning, he took Gonsolin’s second pitch, a high slider up the middle, for an RBI single to center field.
Extended his hitting streak to 13 games, beginning on May 25 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The career-high mark pushed his season batting average from 2.7 to 2.8 (104-for-361) during that stretch.
In 23 games over the second half of the season, Kim has exploded, batting 3-for-8 (33-for-86) with five home runs, 10 RBI, 17 walks, 11 strikeouts, a .490 on-base percentage, a .593 slugging percentage and a 1.083 OPS. He ranks second in batting average and fourth in slugging percentage in both leagues in the second half. Only Freddie Freeman (.420 for the Dodgers) has a higher batting average than Kim in the second half.
His season batting average also ranks in the top 10 in the National League (NL). He is ninth behind Luis Arajuez (.374 in Miami), second behind Freeman (.340), third behind Ronald Acuña Jr. (.339 in Atlanta), fourth behind Bryson Stott (.302 in Philadelphia), fifth behind Orlando Arcia (.297 in Atlanta), sixth behind Alec Bomb (.290 in Philadelphia), seventh behind Christian Yelich (.290 in Milwaukee), and eighth behind Lane Thomas (.290 in Washington).
No Korean major leaguer has ever been in the top 10 in the league in batting average. Before Kim, only Shin-Soo Choo (SSG) had ever been in the top 10 in regulation at-bats. Shin-soo Choo had a total of nine seasons in regulation, with his highest batting average ranking being 12th in the American League (AL) (.300) in 2010 with the Cleveland Indians (now the Guardians). Previously, he hit .300 for the first time in 2009, but never cracked the top 10, finishing 21st in the AL.카지노
Last year, when he became the second Korean player to hit in regulation after Shin-Soo Choo, Kim was 36th in the NL in batting average (.252). He was 36th out of 63 designated hitters, which was above average. This year, he’s ninth out of 76, in the top 11.8%, and on pace to crack the top 10 in batting average, something that Shin-Soo Choo never did.
Unlike in Shin-Soo Choo’s day, the major leagues are now a two-hitter, so there aren’t many triple-digit hitters. There are only nine in total, four in the NL and five in the AL. In 2010, there were 23 triple-hitters, 11 in the NL and 12 in the AL. In a tougher environment for hitters than in the past, Kim’s bat is on fire.
