“I think the dialogue was lacking. It’s my mistake.”
Goji Koji, Doosan Bears hitting coach, found the cause of Jose Rojas (30)’s high ups and downs in himself. He chose to watch rather than express his opinion in order to respect the way of the player from the United States. Rojas has a batting average of 0.171 (6 hits in 35 bats) in 11 games, producing dramatic results in each at-bat.
Coach Goto said, “It’s a lack of conversation. It’s my mistake. Since I played baseball in the United States, it was my mistake to communicate while thinking about watching it the American way. Certainly, there have been more opportunities to talk recently, and as the conversation increased, the players improved. I can see things getting better little by little. In the future, I want the coach to take a more approachable attitude towards Lojas.”
Doosan invested $1 million, the largest amount for a new foreign player, when recruiting Lohas ahead of this season. That means he is a player with high expectations. Rojas has a good starting point, excellent contact ability, and above all, was evaluated as having a better long hitting power than Jose Miguel Fernandez, a foreign hitter who has been with him for the past four seasons. In 11 of his exhibition games, he lived up to those expectations with a batting average of .400 (12-for-30), one home run, and five RBIs.
However, as the regular season progresses, Rojas’ strengths are beginning to be hidden little by little. With runners on, he went 5-for-22 (0.227), 2 homers and 7 RBIs, compared to 1-for-13 (0.077) without runners.
Doosan coach Lee Seung-yeop said, “(Lohas now) has a strong sense of pulling. It’s a hitter who pushes and pulls, but the distribution of batted balls almost goes to the right field. There are fewer going to the center field. It takes a lot of shifts. The ball goes out of hand. The number of misses has increased now, and the pitcher thinks of an advantageous or unfavorable count, and it will improve when he enters the plate.”
Coach Goto tries to pay more attention to Rojas’ psychological stability. He said, “There is a problem of adapting to the KBO League, but there is also a problem of adapting to culture. Because the baseball culture is a little different,토스카지노 I am away from my friends and family who can speak the same language, so it seems that many things are working in a complex way. We eat together and talk like that. I think what it would be like to increase the amount of time he spends doing it.”
Coach Lee is still positively watching Lojas. He showed anticipation, saying, “I’ve been getting walks lately, and he’s definitely helpful to the team. It’s a process I have to go through. (In the future) I’ll show a good look.”