Seoul: As soon as the ball left his bat, LG Twins captain Park Hae-min knew it would leave the yard for a solo home run — as long as the ball stayed fair, that is. After turning on a curveball from Hanwha Eagles starter Moon Dong-ju in the bottom fifth of Game 1 of the Korean Series, Park slowly walked toward first base, with the bat still in his hand. He was trying to will the ball not to hook any farther around the foul pole in the right field.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the ball did listen and cleared the fence at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, the biggest stadium in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). It gave the Twins a 3-0 lead, and they went on to take the contest 8-2. Park emphatically threw down the bat before starting his trot around the bases. It was only the third postseason homer by Park in 31 games. The light-hitting outfielder is rarely, if ever, counted on for home runs — he bats ninth in their lineup for a reason — and that’s all the more reason why the unexpected blast felt so important for the Twins.
Park commented, “I felt the ball was gone as soon as I hit it, but it didn’t go as far as I thought. It would have been embarrassing if it didn’t clear the fence.” Moon, one of the hardest throwers in the KBO, is not an easy pitcher to homer against, Park noted, but he still stepped in with confidence — in himself and in his teammates. “We all know that if we don’t get it done, then someone coming up behind us will do so,” Park said. “That allowed me to take an aggressive swing there.”
Though Park hurled his bat with the authority of someone who has hit plenty of big homers, the player admitted he never expected to go deep in a Korean Series game. “We were clinging to a 2-0 lead, but we were having trouble pulling ahead,” he said. “I just wanted to get on base as the leadoff hitter of that inning. Hitting that home run was the best outcome I could have hoped for.”
Park also made a great running catch in the top of the first inning, robbing Moon Hyun-bin of a potential RBI double that would have given the Eagles an early lead. Park insisted the play only ended up looking good in the end because he didn’t get a good jump and had to run hard to make up ground. “I guess I was a bit nervous in the first inning, and my first step wasn’t as quick as I would have liked,” Park said. “But making that kind of catch in the first inning put me at ease, but I don’t think it was a great defensive play.”
Twins starter Anders Tolhurst certainly appreciated Park’s catch, as he struggled with his command in the first inning. Pitching in what he said was “definitely the biggest game of my time in Korea,” Tolhurst quickly found his rhythm and ended up throwing six innings of two-run ball while striking out seven without walking anyone. “It was great. Just when you think the ball might be a hit, he’s there to make a big play,” the American pitcher said. “Having this guy in the center field, it’s amazing.”
Tolhurst, who joined the Twins in August, sat down eight straight batters in one stretch and struck out the side in the fourth. He said he didn’t have any particular conversation with his catcher Park Dong-won in between innings and credited his success to “being able to execute the pitches that he was calling.” Tolhurst didn’t blame any jitters for his first-inning struggles, saying: “I wouldn’t say I was nervous. I just didn’t execute a couple of pitches there in the first inning, but we were able to get through it. I felt like I was getting much stronger as the game progressed.”