Ha-Sung Kim (San Diego) is having a great second half. His batting average has risen to the top of the major leagues. His Wins Above Replacement (WAR) briefly tied for first in the National League.
Kim batted first and third against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday (June 3) and went 2-for-3 with a home run and two walks. His leadoff home run in the first inning was his 15th of the season. His batting average went from 0.281 to 0.284 and his OPS went from 0.822 to 0.838.
He is San Diego’s best hitter in the second half of the season. With a nine-game hitting streak, Kim raised his second-half batting average to .386. He has a .488 on-base percentage and a .643 slugging percentage. His OPS is over 1, at 1.131. All four categories rank in the top 10 in the National League, and his batting average and slugging percentage are top 10 in the majors as a whole.
Even before including the four home runs in the 15th, Kim was tied for first in the National League in Baseball-Reference WAR. He was tied with Ronald Acuña Jr. (Atlanta) at 5.3. Add to that a multi-hit game, including his 15th home run of the season, and two doubles, and you’ve got the makings of an MVP. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s an MVP caliber player.
Acuña, who was tied for first in WAR with Kim, went 3-for-4 with a double, a home run, and a walk against the Angels on Wednesday. Kim also matched Acuña with four walks. In the entire major leagues, only Shohei “Unicorn” Ohtani (Angels) has a higher WAR than Kim-Ha Sung-Akuya.
Kim is now a force to be reckoned with at the plate. Through the first half, he was batting .258 with a .349 on-base percentage and .411 slugging percentage for an OPS of 0.760. After three days of play, he’s batting .284 with a .380 on-base percentage and .458 slugging percentage for an OPS of .838. In just 19 games, he’s improved in every metric. He’s also dispelled the notion that WAR is built on defense alone.
Kim’s 15th home run of the season came in his first at-bat. It was his fourth leadoff home run of the season and second in the top of the first inning. He took a 90.5 mph (145.6 km/h) fastball from left-handed starter Kyle Freeland and turned it into a 103.1 mph (165.9 km/h) hard hit. It traveled 425 feet (129.5 meters) and cleared the left field fence.카지노사이트
In the third, he drew a walk and scored a run, and in the fifth, he led off with a single to left. After a grounder to second base in the seventh, he added an RBI single in the ninth. Kim’s four hits in one game is the third time he’s had four hits in a game, after going 2-for-4 with two walks against Kansas City on May 18 and 3-for-4 with two walks against Detroit on July 23.
Meanwhile, San Diego continued its winning streak with an 11-1 blowout of Colorado. Starting with Ha-Sung Kim’s homer, Juan Soto, Gary Sanchez, and Fernando Tatis Jr. went over the fence. Sanchez even had a multi-homer game.