Cardenas homers for second straight day

The Samsung Baseball Organization (KBO) announced on Tuesday that it has released foreign-born outfielder David McKinnon and signed Ruben Cardenas. McKinnon had a strong March and April, leading the team in batting average at one point, hitting .369 (27-for-69) with two home runs and nine RBIs. Despite his lack of power, he served as the lifeblood of the center field lineup with a mid-three percent walk rate and an excellent plate discipline, drawing more than twice as many walks (15) as strikeouts (7).

Since May, however, McKinnon’s bat has gone cold. His home park, Samsung Lions Park, is one of the best places to hit home runs, but his long ball poverty remained, and his declining batting average made him less useful. Eventually, McKinnon left the KBO with a .294 (80-for-272) batting average with four home runs and 36 RBIs.

McKinnon was replaced by Cardenas, a one-hit wonder from the United States. This year, despite playing in the Triple-A International League, an American minor league known for its two-hitter, Cardenas hit .277 with 20 home runs and 56 RBIs in 75 games. He’s the opposite of McKinnon in that he has a lower batting average but can still hit for power.

Cardenas, who arrived in South Korea on March 13, made his KBO debut in a three-game series against Lotte on March 19. After adjusting his bat with a single on his debut, Cardenas showed off his long ball with a solo shot in the sixth inning. The home run traveled a whopping 140 meters.

In his third game in the KBO, Cardenas had an “accident” of sorts. He proved why Samsung brought him in with a 카지노 커뮤니티 long home run. Cardenas hit a game-tying two-run shot with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, trailing 4-5, to lift Samsung to a 6-5 victory over Lotte in the 2024 KBO League at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu, South Korea, on Sunday.

Cardenas, who had started the rally with a single down the left-field line in the fifth inning with Samsung trailing 1-4, pulled a 131-kilometer-per-hour forkball up the middle from Lotte closer Kim Won-joong in the bottom of the ninth. It was a big hit that was instantly recognizable as a home run, and the 24,000 fans at Samsung Lions Park rose to their feet to celebrate the new foreign hitter’s explosive long ball. With his 3-for-5 day, Cardenas is now batting .400 (6-for-15) with two home runs and five RBIs in his first three games. Four of his six hits have been for extra bases (two home runs, two doubles).

Third-place Samsung (50-2, 43 points), which swept a three-game weekend series against Lotte with two straight wins, beat Doosan 6-3 at night to stay within one game of second-place LG (51-2, 42 points), which has won five straight.

In Daejeon, Kia beat Hanwha 8-7 in the ninth inning on a come-from-behind three-run homer by Choi Hyung-woo to extend the Pajuk’s winning streak to six games. Hanwha lost its seventh straight game. NC defeated KT 8-2 in Suwon, while Kiwoom escaped a six-game losing streak with a 7-2 win over SSG in Incheon.