It was the third walk-off grand slam in the 42-year history of the Lotte Giants. It was hit by foreign hitter Victor Reyes (30).
Lotte won their 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League regular season home game against the Doosan Bears 6-2 in 10 extra innings on Sunday at Munsu Baseball Stadium in Ulsan, South Korea.
The win was Lotte’s second straight and improved their season record to 38 wins, 46 losses and three ties (0.452 winning percentage). Lotte, which was 1-6 in July before this series, has turned things around with back-to-back wins. They are now 1.5 games behind the ninth-place Hanwha Eagles, who also lost the game, and it was their first winning series in 20 days (2 wins and a tie against Sajik KIA on June 25-27).
Reyes, who started in right field as the team’s No. 4 hitter, went 2-for-5 with two doubles (one home run), four RBIs and two runs scored. Two of his hits, in particular, were crucial in turning the game around for Lotte.
In the bottom of the first inning, Reyes, who came to the plate with runners on first and third, hit a grounder to the first baseman, but was thrown out at the plate. In the bottom of the fourth inning, he was stranded on a fly ball to center field.
Reyes came into his own later in the game, however. He led off the bottom of the seventh inning with Lotte trailing 2-0 and hit a double to right-center off Doosan’s second pitcher, Lee Byung-heon. He advanced to third on Jeon Jun-woo’s fly to right field and scored on pinch-hitter Jung Hoon’s grounder to second base.
Reyes, who had one at-bat off the bench, was the hero in extra innings. Tied 2-2, Lotte loaded the bases in the bottom of the 10th with leadoff hitter Park Seung-wook, but Choi Hang struck out swinging and Hwang Sung-bin grounded into a double play. However, Lee Ho-joon and Ko Seung-min drew walks to load the bases, and Reyes stepped to the plate.
After picking up a fastball, Reyes took advantage of a two-seam slider up the middle from Doosan pitcher Kim Myung-shin. The ball sailed over the fence and into the right-field bleachers for a grand slam, the final out.
The game-winning home run is a rare occurrence in the 42-year history of the KBO. It has only happened 23 times, starting with Lee Jong-do of the MBC 카지노사이트 추천 Cheongnyong (now LG Twins) in the first game of the KBO on March 27, 1982, and ending with Koo Bon-hyuk of LG on April 6. Even Lotte, the original professional team, has never done it, except for Choi Kyung-hwan’s July 25, 1998 resignation from LG Electronics and Kim Eung-guk’s April 10, 2002 resignation from Samsung Electronics.
The decisive blow was met with satisfaction by the manager. “I want to praise Reyes for his game-winning home run,” said Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung (57).
After being doused with cool water by his teammates, Reyes told the media, “It was a very tough game, but I’m very happy to win. I feel like we won and it gives us hope for fall baseball.”
“When I got to the plate, I was waiting for the ball, and the pitcher threw it to me, so it felt good to hit it,” Reyes said of the home run situation. “I went in with the intention to hit it. I knew it because the pitchers had a similar pattern throughout the game,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to hit a home run,” Reyes said, ”I was just trying to get a good pitch, and if I survive, it’s a run, so I was a little more focused.”
Including today’s game, Reyes is batting .355 (122-for-344) with nine home runs, 75 RBI, 50 runs scored, four doubles and a .909 OPS in 87 games this season. Despite his precision hitting, which ranks second in hits and first in doubles, he has yet to reach double-digit home runs. However, he’s fired up the home run gun for two straight games, including the previous day, to allay concerns. “I’m a contact hitter by nature,” Reyes said, ‘but I always tell myself, ’If I hit the ball well, the home runs will come. ‘ I go into every at-bat thinking, ‘If I hit the ball well, I’m going to get a home run.
While he has a high on-base percentage, Reyes also has a higher batting average with runners in scoring position (.374), with runners in scoring position (.410) and with the bases loaded (.556). “I think I’m a little more focused with runners on base,” he said, ”I think I’m more focused than usual because I’m thinking that if I hit, one run is going to score anyway.”
