Padres' Kim Ha-seong injures toe after kicking water cooler in frustration

After getting thrown out at third base in a key moment of an eventual loss, San Diego Padres infielder Kim Ha-seong took out his frustration on a water cooler.

The action may end up costing Kim time on the field.

The Padres said Saturday that Kim is listed as day to day after jamming his right big toe on the cooler during a 7-5 loss to the New York Mets the previous day.

Kim made a baserunning gaffe with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning at Petco Park in San Diego, with the game tied at 3-3. He hit a line drive into the left-field corner and easily made it to second base. And when Kim saw left fielder Tommy Pham getting to the ball slowly, he turned on the jets and headed to third.

It turned out Pham baited Kim into making the miscue. Pham quickly threw to third to beat Kim by a step, and the South Korean's swim move to avoid the tag by third baseman Luis Guillorme didn't get the job done.

After returning to the dugout, Kim walked down the stairwell and kicked a cooler that he thought was empty but wasn't.

Kim was removed from the game an inning later, and the X-rays on the toe came back negative.

"I made an aggressive decision. Then, obviously, it didn't turn out the way I wanted," Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae, according to MLB.com. "I also felt that play influenced the outcome of the game. I take full responsibility of the play I made and also the mistake I made. In the future, that's not going to happen."

Padres manager Bob Melvin called Kim "an aggressive player" but said he might have tried to do "a little bit too much" on this particular play.

"He saw something down the line there and thought he had a chance to go to third," Melvin said. "We've seen him. He's got really good instincts. It took a good throw to get him. Sometimes you try to do a little bit too much. Maybe that was the case there."

Kim has been one of baseball's top defenders in the last couple of seasons. In 2022, Kim was a finalist for the National League Gold Glove award at shortstop. He has been playing mostly at second base this season and was leading the entire majors in Outs Above Average, which measures how many outs a player has saved for his team compared with an average fielder, with 11.

Losing Kim for any extended period of time can only exacerbate what has already been a frustrating season for the Padres, whose free-spending ways in recent years haven't produced much winning on the field.

Before Saturday's game, the Padres sat in fourth place in the National League West at 41-47, seven games out of the final wild card spot. (Yonhap)