At the 2025 KBO Media Day, which was held two days before the opening of the regular season, Kim Do-young (22) expressed her expectations for the new season, saying, "I want to play fast. It's boiling."바카라사이트
In his third year as a professional, Kim had a batting average of 0.347, 38 homers, 40 steals, 143 runs, 109 RBIs, and 1.067 OPS in 141 games last year. Fans are paying keen attention to how much growth young batters in their early 20s will make this year.
However, Kim hurt his left hamstring while running against NC at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field on March 22, leaving the lineup immediately. Kim Do-young, who was waiting for the opening, and Kia, which had high expectations for the MVP of the previous season, were also unexpected accidents.
The misfortune came at once. Starting with Kim Do-young, main hitters such as Park Chan-ho and Kim Sun-bin left one after another due to injuries. KIA, which won the "integrated championship" last year due to overwhelming batting, also lost its strength as key hitters were missing one after another. KIA fell to the last place alone on the 12th, although it was only one day.
Kim Do-young couldn't have felt comfortable watching the team's fall. It is important to return to the first team quickly, but what kind of performance you will perform after returning was more important. Kim Do-young devoted herself to rehabilitation with the determination to produce results as soon as possible after returning, and was registered in the first team entry on the 25th.
He proved himself as a superstar after just three at-bats. On the day he returned to the mound, Kim hit a timely two-run homer as a pinch hitter with no outs in the bottom of the fourth inning when his team was losing 1-3 at the match against LG Electronics in Gwangju.
After returning to the starting lineup on Friday, he hit a timely hit at the bottom of the first inning with runners on the first and second bases with no outs when the team was tying 0-0 against LG, giving his team the first run. He also hit a home run right away. With his team leading 2-0 at the bottom of the third inning, he hit a third-high curveball by LG starter Lee Ji-gang to garner a strikeout that pushed him over the right fence. With Kim Do-young joining in, Kia Tigers won 8-4, ending its three-game losing streak.
After failing to play for more than a month, Kim took a hard hit as soon as he returned. "I thought it might take some time to find a sense of hitting, but now that I see him hitting, he prepared well for me during his rehabilitation," Kia Tigers coach Lee Bum-ho said.
Kim Do-young said, "The team's situation is not so good, so I tried a lot to get the hang of it and adapt faster." He reportedly took out the "baseball diary" he wrote last season, which he received the MVP, and made up his mind.
"Now that I've come out like this, I thought the most important thing is to change the result rather than the process," Kim said. "I studied at home a lot to get results as quickly as possible," Kim said. "I reread the baseball diary that I wrote last year before returning. I think it helped me adjust quickly."
The key now is to play the rest of the season in good health. "The hamstring itself is a part that poses a risk of injury, so I still feel anxious. The first thing to do is to get rid of this anxiety," Kim said. "I will take good care of the injury so that it does not recur."