“If it had hit me a little higher, I would have been in trouble.”
San Diego Padres’ Kim Ha-seong recalled the dizzying moment he was substituted after being hit in the knee by a foul ball while batting.
“It’s much better,” Kim told MK Sports ahead of the Padres’ game against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York, on 27 July (KST). The pain is less and the movement is better,” he said.
Kim went down the day before against the Washington Nationals after being hit on the inside of his left knee by a foul ball he hit.스포츠토토
Describing the pain as the worst he’d ever felt in baseball, he said, “Normally, the pain goes away after a while, but yesterday it was still there. It was really bad. I couldn’t put any pressure on my leg, so I thought, ‘Something’s wrong,'” he said.
Eventually, he was unable to walk on his own and had to be helped off the field by a trainer. Fortunately, the uneasy feeling was short-lived. An X-ray revealed nothing wrong.
Luck was on his side. “If it had hit the upper cap (kneecap) a little bit further, it would have broken,” he said, adding that he avoided serious injury by a hair’s breadth.
It’s not uncommon for a foul ball to hit him in the shin or foot, but rarely in the knee. “I hit a ball on a course I shouldn’t have,” he explained.
“I hit a ball on the course that I shouldn’t have hit,” he said, adding that he has received many calls from friends since the injury. Luckily, my bones don’t break easily. I don’t get hurt very often,” he said with a laugh before heading out onto the field to train.
He took to the field separately before the team drills, sprinting and side-stepping under the watchful eye of a trainer to check his condition, and then went through the normal drills during team batting practice.
For now, he’s out of the starting lineup. “We’ll probably rest him today, but he’s available off the bench,” manager Bob Melvin said of his status.