“Something seemed like a chance would come to me.”
As soon as he moved up from the 2nd division to the 1st division, he became the protagonist of the final stroke. He didn’t hit the right time with the bat, but it was a push walk that was more brilliant than ever.
Changwon NC Park on the 23rd스포츠토토, where Lotte and NC played. Lotte called outfielder Yoon Dong-hee (20) for the second year to the first team ahead of the match.
Yoon Dong-hee was able to be called up to the 1st team by showing an activity like a ‘2nd group bomber’ in the Futures League. Lotte manager Larry Sutton called Yoon Dong-hee, who exploded one home run and 11 RBIs with a batting average of .436, an on-base percentage of .521, and a slugging percentage of .615 in the second team, to the first team, saying, “I have high expectations. I went down and had a lot of conversations with hitting coach Ryan Long and went through adjustments and showed a really hot hitting feeling in the 2nd team,” he said.
As Sutton said, the game started from the bench. The opportunity has come. In the beginning of the 8th inning, Kim Min-seok took the plate instead. The result is a right-handed hit. He got off to a good start this season, recording a hit in his first at-bat for the first team.
With Lotte trailing by 0-3, Lotte was attacked in the top of the 9th inning. Following Roh Jin-hyeok’s push-off walk, Jeon Jun-woo’s infield hit to the shortstop led to an error by shortstop Kim Joo-won throwing to first base, and two runners scored, tying the game at 3-3 did. Here, as Jeong-hoon went to base with an automatic 4-pitch, another chance to load the bases came. NC judged that it was better to play with Yun Dong-hee, who had just been promoted to the first team, than Jeong-hoon, who had a lot of experience.
However, Yoon Dong-hee did not care even if Lee Yong-chan continued to play with a forkball, and played a full count match. And he finally got the valuable result of a push-out walk while waiting for the fastball that came in on the 7th pitch. The moment Lotte reverses to 4-3. Lotte scored 5 points only in the 9th inning, adding 1 point to Hwang Seong-bin’s timely hit, and was able to take the joy of sweeping 3 consecutive matches and winning 4 consecutive victories over the weekend with a 5-3 victory.
What kind of mind was Donghee Yoon who entered the plate? “I felt like a chance would come to me. I was waiting with the feeling of ‘please give me a chance,’ but the real opportunity came,” said Yoon Dong-hee, who said, “A good opportunity came, but if you are greedy to do well, the result may not be good. Regret. I thought I would do without it,” he said. Not being afraid of chances and not being overly ambitious led to good results.
Entering the first team for the first time this season, he seemed far from nervous. “Still, playing in the first team for a short time last year helped me,” said Yoon Dong-hee, “I was less nervous and relaxed.”
In fact, Yoon Dong-hee received favorable reviews from the spring camp, but he had to start the season in the second team because there were players such as Hwang Seong-bin, Ahn Kwon-soo, and Kim Min-seok who competed in the outfield. He must have had a lot of regret not being able to enter the opening entry. However, Yoon Dong-hee said, “Rather than regretting it, I just thought it was a good experience. Even in the demonstration game, I played against outstanding players from the first team, and I thought it would be nice if it would be a demonstration game that would help me from a distance, so I wasn’t too sad.” said.
In the meantime, he wondered what kind of preparation he had made to get up to the first team. “During the demonstration game, I thought a lot about my own strike zone. Since the ball is so fast and changes so quickly, if I don’t have my own definite strike zone, I think it will affect my mentality, so I set my own strike zone clearly even when I went to the 2nd team. I put a lot of effort into it,” said Yoon Dong-hee.
Right now, Lotte has an abundance of outfielders, but most of them consist of left-handed hitters, so right-handed outfielders are definitely rare. Yoon Dong-hee is well aware of this. Yoon Dong-hee said, “I want to become a player who is good at all five tools. Also, there are not many right-handed outfielders on the team, so if I fill that position, it will be good for me and for the team.”
Yoon Dong-hee, who already recorded the highest batting average in the team last year with a batting average of .310, 6 homers, 42 RBIs and 19 stolen bases in the Futures League, showed rapid growth this year and was able to enter the first team stage again. He is interested in what kind of performance Yoon Dong-hee, who became the protagonist of the final stroke as soon as he came up to the first team, will show in the future.