No tragedy like a head-first sliding injury. No tragedy like this.
Lotte suffered another injury blow. First-rounder and top prospect Go Seung-min (23) injured his left thumb.
Go Seung-min started the game against visiting Hanwha in the ‘2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League’ at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on April 6, batting third and playing first base. In the top of the fifth inning, Ko hit a grounder to second base, but as he ran to first base, he realized that there was a possibility of an infield hit, so he made a bold head-first slide.
The result: an out. But there was worse news to come: an injury. Go Seung-min injured his left thumb on a head-first slide.
He had to stay in the dugout until the bottom of the sixth inning, when he was replaced by Park Seung-wook. Lotte won the game 5-3, but it wasn’t all smiles.
On July 7, Ko had a checkup at Good Samseon Hospital in Busan and had to face the news that he had a “partial rupture of the medial ligament of his left thumb.”
It was a tragedy caused by a momentary slip. It will take him at least four weeks to return to work. “We expect his rehabilitation period to take about four weeks,” said a Lotte representative.
After batting .316 with five home runs and 30 RBIs in 92 games last year, Ko Seung-min has been an integral part of Lotte’s lineup this year, doubling as a first baseman. In 69 games this season, he’s batting .241 with two home runs, 22 RBIs, and seven doubles.온라인바카
That’s not good news for Lotte. With Na Kyun-ahn recently returning from right elbow inflammation, Choi Joon-yong from a back injury, and Noh Jin-hyuk from a left oblique injury, the team was close to having a “full complement” of players and manager Larry Sutton emphasized the importance of getting the injured back first, so the loss of Ko Seung-min was a major blow to the team’s chances of rebounding.
Lotte has a busy road ahead. The team that once took the league by storm and was headed for a +11 win-loss margin is now barely hovering around the 5s with a +1 win-loss margin. When will Lotte be able to fight as a complete team?