'Only foreign hitter without a home run' Kiwoom's Brooks, suddenly replaced in the 5th inning—Has the bench's patience reached its limit?

*This content was translated by AI.

The bench's patience toward Kiwoom Heroes foreign hitter Trenton Brooks (31) appears to have reached a critical point. Not only is he the only foreign hitter in the 2026 KBO League season without a home run, but his May performance has plummeted to a batting average in the early 10s, plunging him into a severe slump.

On the 5th, Kiwoom manager Seol Jong-jin (53) replaced Brooks, who started as the cleanup hitter and left fielder against the Samsung Lions at Daegu Samsung Lions Park, immediately at the start of the bottom of the 5th inning. Taehyun entered the game in Brooks' place.

Removing a foreign hitter midway through a game without any special physical signs such as injury is interpreted as a de facto disciplinary substitution. A Kiwoom club official also explained to StarNews that it was "a substitution without any injury or unusual circumstances."

The background for Brooks' early substitution lies in his power hitting that simply refuses to materialize. In fact, his batting slump has worsened with each passing game. Over his last 10 games, he has managed only a .167 batting average (6 hits in 36 at-bats), and his May statistics, including the the 5th game against Samsung, stand at 2 hits in 15 at-bats, calculating to a .133 batting average.

Furthermore, Brooks is currently the only foreign hitter active in the KBO League who has not recorded a single home run. The "slugger" image that the club expects from foreign hitters has disappeared. In fact, even KIA Tigers' replacement foreign hitter Adelin Rodriguez has been hitting home runs since his debut game on the 5th.

Ahead of the the 5th game, manager Seol Jong-jin defended Brooks' batting slump, saying, "He is evaluated as a player with good plate vision, but he has a tendency to rush a bit. It seems he lost his balance by making contact with high pitches that were balls. That's why I always tell him to approach the plate with composure, but it's not easy to resolve. The players themselves, once they step into the batter's box, have a strong desire to hit hard."

However, Brooks' early substitution in the first away game of the day at Daegu carries significant implications. In fact, Brooks was placed in the ninth spot in the batting order for the first time this season. With the team's lineup stagnating, the foreign hitter's slump has become a matter that the bench can no longer overlook. In particular, in his first at-bat in the 3rd inning on the 5th, Brooks hit a poorly located second pitch right down the middle and was out on a fly ball to right field. In the 4th inning, he also hit the first pitch and was out on a ground ball to the second baseman. These scenes could be interpreted as signs of impatience.

Brooks' silence has become too long to wait for simply due to league adaptation. At this point in the season when most clubs use the foreign player substitution card as a strategy to turn around team performance, attention is focused on whether Brooks will make a comeback following this early substitution or if Kiwoom will bring forward the timing of making a decisive move.

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*This content was translated by AI.