Park Chan-ho’s super catch to stop Doosan’s rally…”I anticipated the direction of the hit”
Park Chan-ho (KIA Tigers) started at shortstop in the ninth spot in the lineup against the Doosan Bears in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, and went 1-for-4 with one RBI.
Park Chan-ho shined on offense and defense. In the bottom of the fifth inning with KIA leading 4-3, Song Seung-hwan came to the plate with runners on first and second. From the first pitch, Song Seung-hwan actively swung at Lee Jun-young’s slider. After a first-pitch foul, he saw a two-pitch pitch and took a three-pitch slider.
It looked like the ball was going to go over the height of shortstop Park Chan-ho. However, Park Chan-ho made a jumping catch. The runner at second base, Yang Seok-hwan, was sprinting to third base, expecting a hit. He didn’t make it back to second base, and Park Chan-ho threw to second with time to spare, extending the out count to two. A hit would have tied the game.
Park spoke to the media after the game about his defense, saying, “I anticipated the pitch. I hit a slider and fouled it off. When I saw that, I thought, ‘I’m going to go for the slider,’ so I took two or three steps to the right. That’s where the ball came and I was able to catch it.”
“Sometimes it’s pre-determined through pre-game power analysis, and sometimes it’s situational,” Park said, adding, “This defensive shift was not pre-determined. It was my judgment.” 스포츠토토
Park Chan-ho, who showed off his hustle, immediately followed with an RBI single in the top of the sixth inning. He came to the plate with runners on second and third and took a two-pitch fork from Kim Myung-shin for a single to center field. Park’s RBI single gave KIA the lead, and they went on to score two more runs in the seventh and ninth innings to win 7-3.
“It was a bad pitch. I was only thinking about one pitch, and I thought, ‘If it’s a hard ball, don’t hit it.’ Instead, I was thinking about actively hitting high pitches,” he said, “and that’s what happened. I was lucky. I think there was a part of me that was a little more focused because I hit a lot of kills.”
