SEOUL– The Kia Tigers’ red-hot outfielder Socrates Brito was named South Korean baseball’s top player for May on Thursday.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) said Brito, the first-year import for the Tigers, won the voting for the Player of the Month honor for May.
Brito collected 18 out of 32 votes cast by the media to lead five other candidates, with Park Byung-ho of the KT Wiz earning nine votes to rank second in that category.
In the fan voting, Brito garnered 64,748 out of 340,076 votes, the second-most behind the Kiwoom Heroes’ starting pitcher An Woo-jin (155,702).
When the voting totals were converted to points, Brito finished with 37.64 points, with An finishing as the runner-up at 29.14 points.
Brito shook off a dismal April and put together an outstanding May. He led the KBO in batting average (.415), slugging percentage (.698) and hits (44) in that month, while ranking second in RBIs (28), runs scored (20) and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.145).
Brito batted only .227 with one home run and nine RBIs and a .371 slugging percentage in April, leading to speculation that he could be one of the first foreign players to be cut this year.
Instead, with a huge turnaround in May, Brito saved his job and also saved the Tigers’ season. They were in seventh place at 10-14 at the end of April but posted the league’s best record in May at 18-8 to jump to third place.
Brito hasn’t cooled off in June. He has hit safely in all six games so far this month, for a .360/.360/.680 line, along with two home runs, three RBIs and six runs scored.
Brito will receive 2 million won (US$1,590) in prize money, along with a gold bar worth 750,000 won, courtesy of Shinhan Bank, the title sponsor of the 2022 KBO season.
Source: Yonhap News Agency