Thames struck by sudden slump suffers poor batting average

Thames struck by sudden slump suffers poor batting average. August. 28, 2015 07:11. kini@donga.com.

It seems that something’s wrong with Eric Thames (photo, aged 29) of the NC Dinos. While he used to be a player with power and elaborate skills who threatened his counterparts, his batting average of current 10 games up to Aug. 26 stopped short of 0.114. Now, he can’t be sure of obtaining the title of batting champion. To the nearest thousandth, he has already lost the first place of batting average to Andy Manuel Marte (aged 32) of the KT Wiz whose record stands at 0.3674. He is eight-homerun behind Park Byung-ho (aged 29) of the Nexen Heroes who hit 45 homers so far.

Thames was struck by the slump after he hit the homerun (his 37th in the season) and stole to second base (29th) at the game against the Nexen Heroes, which was held in Mokdong on Aug 12. Only one more stolen base to “30-30 Club,” he has lost the momentum to go further. As the slump lingers, he failed to cope with the stress. At Daejeon game on Aug. 19, he filed a complaint when he was struck out on his first at bat, which made manager Kim Gyeong-moon to withdraw him from the game. At the following game on Aug.21, he was out for a batter’s box as a pinch player. “The NC Dinos is not a team for foreign players,” said manager Kim.

Kim rebuked Thames as the cleanup hitter stuck in the slump closed the recent 10 games with 7 wins and 3 losses. At the second place, the NC Dinos left the Doosan Bears out with 3.5 games and closed the gap with first-runner Samsung Lions by 2.5 games.

The team can no longer endure with only “gum” without teeth. If the cleanup hitter fails to play a pivotal role, the batting lineup of the team is doomed to be shaky. Thames is anticipating the next game with Nexen as he holds batting average of 0.683, eight homers, 20 RBIs and six stolen bases against the team. The game against Nexen, however, is scheduled on Sept. 10.