Excluding Yoo Kang-nam's 4G consecutive selection! Park Se-woong's partner Son Seong-bin → Kim Tae-hyung chose the momentum

*This content was translated by AI.

Lotte Giants' main catcher Yoo Kang-nam (34) was not listed in the starting lineup for the fourth consecutive game. Coach Kim Tae-hyung (58) continued to pick Son Sung-bin (24) once again as a partner of "Glasses Ace" Park Se-woong.

Lotte put Son Sung-bin as the starting catcher in a showdown with the Kiwoom Heroes of the "2026 Shinhan SOL KBO League" at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on the 12th. As a result, Yoo Kang-nam's exclusion from starting the game against KT on the 7th has now increased to the fourth game.

The reason why this choice is particularly eye-catching is that the starting pitcher is Park Se-woong. Yoo Kang-nam had the upper hand in objective data. In the 2025 season, Park Se-woong collaborated with Yoo Kang-nam for 125 innings and recorded an POPS of 0.726 while Son Seong-bin was slightly higher at 0.758. The 2024 season also left a top-notch index of 0.703 for the POPS against Yoo Kang-nam.

However, head coach Kim Tae-hyung raised his hand to the "current trend" rather than past records. Coach Kim's recent stability in his home turf seems to have played a major role in this decision. Lotte has won the last three games, with all starting pitchers showing "salty water pitches" of more than six innings and one run or less. In particular, Son Sung-bin's help was significant in Bisley's perfect rebound with one run in six innings on the 11th.

Coach Kim said in an interview ahead of the game the previous day (11th), "If both catchers are not in a good batting condition, it is right to use a player who shows better performance in terms of defense," giving high marks to Son's contribution to defense, blocking and blocking of stolen bases.

Lotte composed the batting order in the order of Hwang Sung-bin (center fielder), Reyes (left fielder), Noh Jin-hyuk (first baseman), Han Dong-hee (third baseman), Jeon Joon-woo (designated hitter), Han Tae-yang (second baseman), Yoon Dong-hee (right fielder), Jeon Min-jae (striker), and Son Sung-bin (catcher).

Yoo Kang-nam waits on the bench and seeks to put in the second half of the game. The message about the fact that the main catcher, who signed a large contract of 8 billion won, has been pushed out of the starting lineup for four consecutive games is interpreted as clear. It seems that head coach Kim Tae-hyung is determined to put "current performance" and "team's winning formula" first, without relying on name values or past data.

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*This content was translated by AI.