Hanwha’s Noh Si-hwan has been hitting for extraordinary length this season, and he’s going for his first career home run title.
He currently leads the league with 26 home runs. He was tied with SSG’s Choi Jeong (21) until midway through the season, but has since widened the gap with a three-homer outburst in a single game against KT on April 9.
After joining Hanwha in the second round (3rd overall) in 2019, Noh has been given consistent opportunities since his debut and is developing into the future of the team.
After hitting his first double-digit home run (12) in 2020 and a career-high 18 in 2021, he seemed to be living up to expectations, but a brief slump came last year when his home run total dropped to six.
But this season has been different. After a quiet opening month with two home runs, Noh exploded in May (seven), followed by six in each of June and July, and five in August, making him the only player in the league who is mathematically capable of reaching 40 home runs.
At this rate, he could become just the third player in franchise history to reach the milestone. Jang Jong-hoon won three consecutive home run titles from 1990-1992 when he was with the Binggrae, and Kim Tae-gyun followed suit in 2008. Both batters are Eagles legends who have reached the Hall of Fame.
One area of disappointment is Hanwha’s team performance.
Despite having the top home run hitter, Hanwha is still in eighth place, making fall baseball less and less likely. They are eight games out of the postseason with fifth-place Doosan. Unless the team can rebound, we may not see the home run king in the fall.토토사이트
Until the 2000s, it was not uncommon for teams with the home run leader to miss fall baseball. SK’s Park Kyung-wan, Hyundai’s Sutton, and Lotte’s Lee Dae-ho, who won the home run title from 2004 to 2006, were unable to translate their long balls into team success, as was Hanwha’s Kim Tae-gyun in 2008.
The story is a little different in the 2010s. With three exceptions (Nexen’s Park Byung-ho in 2012 and SSG’s Choi Jeong in 2016 and 2021), every team with a home run king made the postseason.
Winning the home run title has been more difficult. Looking only at the 2000s, only three teams – Samsung’s Lee Seung-yeop in 2002, Kia’s Kim Sang-hyun in 2009, and Samsung’s Choi Hyung-woo in 2011 – have managed to do both.