KBO’s home run leader stays locked in for final stretch with team out of race

NC Dinos slugger Matt Davidson has had a productive season for himself, but the same couldn’t be said about his Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) club. Davidson, in his first KBO season after six big-league seasons and another one in Japan, leads the league here with 46 home runs through Tuesday’s action. He ranks second with 119 RBIs and third in on-base plus slugging with .998. He is the first KBO hitter since 2020 to launch at least 40 homers in a season.

But his performance has not been enough to salvage the Dinos’ season. They sat in second place in the middle of May, but they have been in a freefall since. Since May 16, they have had the worst record in the league at 35-58-1 (wins-losses-ties). The swoon cost manager Kang In-kwon his job last Friday, a day after the Dinos, down to ninth place among 10 teams, were officially knocked out of postseason contention.

With eight games to go, the Dinos named their minor league manager Kong Pill-sung as interim manager for the big club. Before Kong’s first game in charge Tuesday evening against the Doosan Bears in Seoul, Davidson said the situation is “obviously tough” but he and his teammates should just keep doing what they’ve been doing all season. “As a player, we play every single day, and the easiest thing is to try to stay locked in,” Davidson said at Jamsil Baseball Stadium, noting this was the first time in his career that his manager was sacked during a season.

“You just show up and do the same thing every day, and really, that’s all I try to do,” Davidson added. “Just act like nothing’s changed. Whether we’re in first place or last place, you just show up and try to do the same thing every single day, and that just kind of keeps everything in line. The Dinos may not be headed to the postseason, but they still have a 커뮤니티 say in the playoff picture. For two straight games starting Wednesday, they will host the SSG Landers, who are fighting for their postseason life. They are in sixth place at 68-70-2, one back of the KT Wiz for the final playoff spot.

Then the Dinos will face the Bears again Saturday, with the Bears trying to secure fourth place and thus the home field advantage for the wild card game. “I think they’re going to be playing hard obviously, and we’re going to play hard as well,” Davidson said of the upcoming games. “It’s crazy how close the teams are in this league with 10 teams and everybody plays each other. It’s the last week, and (the postseason picture) is still undecided, which is pretty cool.”

Davidson had some success in the majors earlier in his career, hitting 26 homers for the Chicago White Sox in 2017 and 20 more the following year. But he bounced around three clubs over the next handful of seasons. Then with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball last year, Davidson had 19 home runs in 112 games, but it came with a .210/.273/.425 line. Davidson said he “struggled pretty bad” in Japan and wanted to turn things around in South Korea this year. And he said his first KBO season “went pretty well.”

“I think for the first half of the season, I was trying to find my swing still. Last year, I struggled pretty bad, and I made some adjustments in the offseason,” Davidson said. “And you go into a season, and you don’t really know exactly how that’s going to translate. You’ve got to see and feel the league, and feel your bats and see what happens. “And there were still some things that weren’t totally right going into the season,” Davidson continued. “So I had to fix those in the season. But as the season went on, I feel like I found my swing and got a little bit more consistent with things. And the rest has been history.”