Jung Eun-won (23-Hanwha Eagles) is starting to get her bat going again.
On April 6 against the SSG Landers in Daejeon, Jung started at first base and went 4-for-6 with a home run, a walk, two RBIs, and two runs scored, including an infield single in the bottom of the 11th inning of extra innings.안전놀이터 It was the first time Jeong had four hits in a game since June 3 last year against the Kiwoom Heroes.
This season has been a nightmare for Jeong. As of July 7, she is batting just .233 (81-for-347) with a .280 on-base percentage. This is the worst slump of her career, even including her rookie year (2018) when she hit .249. He hasn’t hit over .250 this year since April (0.207). Most notably, in August, after an 11-game monthly batting average of 0.152, he lost his starting second base job to rookie Moon Hyun-bin and was demoted to the second team.
Jung’s struggles are not limited to the individual level. For Hanwha, which has been vowing to rebuild for years, Jung has been the centerpiece of its batting lineup. The blueprint was for the second baseman, who won the Golden Glove for second baseman in 2021 with a .407 on-base percentage, to bat first, with slugger Roh Si-hwan batting fourth. While Noh has developed as expected, hitting 30 home runs this season, Jung’s performance has regressed. Jeong’s struggles have left Hanwha’s batting order without a proven young option outside of Noh. It’s also put a damper on the team’s hopes for fall baseball in 2024.
Still, his recent pace has been good after a stint in the second team. After returning to the first team on the first day of the expanded roster, he hit safely in four of his five September games. His monthly batting average is also on track at .318 (7-for-22).
In a post-game broadcast interview on the 6th, Jung said, “I came up after gaining a lot of confidence in the second team. I fixed a lot of problems. I took a simple approach, and I thought, “Let’s just fix the problem of my right shoulder opening up (when swinging).” I think that part worked.
“It was hard and upsetting because I couldn’t play baseball. I felt a lot of different emotions,” he said, “but people around me said so many good things. It was also an opportunity to look at myself again. My family, who always supported me, was my biggest strength.”
Hanwha will end the season with 30 more games to play in seven days. No matter how well Chung plays the rest of the way, it’s unlikely the team will finish the season on a high note. But he’s a sixth-year pro with a bright future, so he’ll have to shake off the slump and end the season with a good feeling.
“The seniors also told me, ‘This year will be a good experience in your baseball life,’ and that made me feel a little better,” Jung recalled, adding, “The season is coming to an end. I want to finish with a good feeling because it’s been bad, and I want to do my best in every game for the rest of the season to make up for what I haven’t done so far.”