I’ll be the first to admit it; I was skeptical of Jung Ho Kang. When the Pirates signed him this winter, my initial thought was that it was a worthy risk to take and that maybe he’d develop into a decent hitter for the Bucs eventually, but that the learning curve from the KBO to MLB was likely to be pretty steep. Kang’s spring training and early season with the Bucs didn’t really do much to assuage my fears. He looked completely out of sync at the plate, and he didn’t appear to be anything special on the bases or in the field. I specifically remember watching him fail to beat out a couple of slow bouncers in the hole against Milwaukee on the season’s first weekend, and wondering what the Pirates thought they had in Kang.
It’s pretty clear now. It’s May 29th and the Pirates have played 47 games. The Pirate offense got off to a slow start, but it’s rounding into shape; they’re seventh in the NL in runs scored and eighth in OPS, so I think we can say that they’re more or less NL average at this point. There are two players tied for the team lead in wRC+, at 134. One of them is Starling Marte, the other is Jung Ho Kang.
This is even more impressive than it seems, because after the Pirates’ game on April 28th, Kang was hitting .182/.208/.227. He got a start the next day, which was the Sunday afternoon at Wrigley in which he had three hits, including a double off of the left-center wall that was very nearly his first big league home run. He got another start on May 3rd and got two hits in that game, and has more or less been in the starting lineup ever sense. Starting with that April 29th game against the Cubs, Kang is hitting .341/.413/.524 in his last 22 games (20 starts) with six doubles and three homers. The Pirates have gotten quite a few good offensive performances in the last month; Kang, Andrew McCutchen, Francisco Cervelli, Starling Marte, Pedro Alvarez, and Josh Harrison all have a wRC+ of 120 or better in the 30 days between April 29th and May 28th. Only McCutchen (174) has been better than Kang (165) (and actually, Cervelli’s at 161, but he’s his own post at this point).
I’m sure that Kang will cycle up and down a bit over the course of the season as pitchers adjust to him and he adjusts back, but I can’t say that I’m anything but incredibly impressed that he’s spent a month matching a back-in-top-form Andrew McCutchen more or less hit for hit. He’s adapted way quicker than I would’ve dared hope for back in December, and he’s a big part of this seven-game winning streak.
Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images
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