by Cary Osborne
We were informed about the hitting, speed and the defense. And we were told months ago — before he ever put on a Major League uniform — that there was some pop in the bat also.
We’ve seen some of the first three. Hyeseong Kim showed the fourth characteristic that made him one of the top players in the Korea Baseball Organization and a coveted free agent this offseason.
Kim, with the Dodgers trailing by a run in the bottom of the fifth inning, popped a solo home run over the wall in right field at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday.
It wasn’t the game-changing hit in the game. That later came in the bottom of the sixth inning by his replacement — pinch-hitter Miguel Rojas, whose RBI double gave the Dodgers the go-ahead run.
Mookie Betts later doubled in two in the eighth inning. Max Muncy hit the fourth Dodger homer of the game with a three-run shot in the eighth.
But it was a game-changer at the time in the Dodgers’ 9–3 win against the Athletics.
https://medium.com/media/0e8123b5532cff07ee8dd4aa21ca9313/href
Kim, already establishing himself as a popular figure within the team, was showered in sunflower seeds at the doorstep of the Dodger dugout after the homer. Then he high-fived his way through a tunnel of Dodgers in the dugout.
“As a person who always dreamed to play in this stadium, Dodger Stadium, I’m really happy, and I’m really thrilled right now,” Kim said.
The Dodger second baseman reached base in both his plate appearances on Wednesday. He singled in the second inning.
The 26-year-old is now 9-for-25 (.360) in 11 games this season.
Kim, whose first name translates to “Comet” in Korean, hit a career-high 11 home runs in the KBO last season to go along with a .326 average. His home run percentage was a KBO-best 1.9%.
He hit five home runs in 28 games with Triple-A Oklahoma City this year before his May 3 big league callup. Adding his first Major League homer, he has six in 156 plate appearances this year for a 3.8% home run percentage.
“I’m not really trying to think about hitting for power. I think the only thing that I really care about is to hit a hard hit,” Kim said.
The runs helped Yoshinobu Yamamoto walk away a winner for the fifth time this season. It was also the fifth time the right-hander completed at least six innings this season. The Dodgers as a team have 11 starts this season of at least six innings.
https://medium.com/media/8054b362876a803ec1529ee22128d4a0/href
Yamamoto was sharp through the first two innings, striking out four of the seven batters he faced. But his night was over with the score tied 3–3 heading into the bottom of the sixth. Yamamoto allowed a two-run homer to Tyler Soderstrom in the third inning and an RBI double to Miguel Andujar in the fourth.
“In the end, we won this game, and I was personally (satisfied) because I was able to grind out,” Yamamoto said.
The Dodgers had the first two runs from a Shohei Ohtani leadoff homer in the first and an Andy Pages solo homer in the second.
https://medium.com/media/943e95af84b50618645000528bc57f74/href
Pages reached base all four times on Wednesday — homer, single, walk, single.
Pages is batting .386 (32-for-83) over his last 20 games.
Hyeseong Kim blasts off for the first time, as four Dodger homers power LA was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.