Futile offense slows down Lotte

After eight games in the 2014 Korea Baseball Organization season, the Lotte Giants are sitting pretty in second place, with four wins, three losses and a tie.

Their solid start is actually no thanks to their hapless offense.

A time-worn baseball cliche says pitching and defense win games and, ultimately, championships. Though it’s still early in the 128-game season here, the Giants are taking that adage to a whole new level.

Statistically, they have the league’s best pitching and defense, and have the worst offense.

They have committed two errors, fewer than any other club, and boast the lowest team ERA of 3.43. Their pitchers have issued 32 walks in 76 innings, the lowest rate in the KBO.

On the flip side, the Giants have the worst team batting average with .241 and the lowest on-base percentage with .334.

These numbers have translated into 4.25 runs per game, seventh in the league and nearly a full run below the league average.

On Thursday, the Giants walked off on the LG Twins 4-1 in extra innings, thanks to a three-run jack by Luis Jimenez, making his KBO debut after missing time with an injury, in the bottom of the 10th.

The Giants had been on the verge of being held to two runs or below for the fourth time in eight games.

The inability to drive in men in scoring position has plagued the Busan-based club.

On Wednesday, in a 7-4 loss to the Twins, the Giants blew several scoring chances after pulling into a 4-4 tie in the sixth.

They left the bases loaded with two down in the sixth, stranded a man on second with two outs in the seventh and failed to score with runners on first and second with one out in the eighth.

A day earlier on Tuesday, the Giants and the Twins ended up in a 2-2 tie, a result that surely felt like a loss to the Giants, as they managed just two runs after loading the bases four times.

The no-out, bases-full situation in the bottom of the 10th provided a microcosm of how their season has gone so far. Where a deep fly to the outfield would have brought home the winning run, Lotte hitters struck out and hit two groundouts en route to a disappointing 12-inning tie.

The Giants’ lineup is top heavy: Son A-seop is batting a robust .412 from the No. 3 hole, and Park Jong-yoon is hitting .357. There are a handful of others, though, hitting below .200.

Catcher Kang Min-ho, who signed a record 7.5 billion won ($7.2 million) contract to remain with Lotte last winter, is right on the number.

Though he has three homers, Kang is batting just .143 with men in scoring position.

Choi Joon-seok, a hulking infielder who signed as a free agent in the offseason, has a .136 average with one homer while batting cleanup in Jimenez’s absence.

With Jimenez back from his hamstring injury on Thursday, earlier than expected, Choi was benched.

Manager Kim Si-jin, though, said he will remain patient with his hitters.

“Hitters go through ups and downs,” he said.

“I have no intention of making lineup changes based on their performances in just a few games.” (Yonhap)