In a long race of 144 games, hitting is bound to have cycles, and even though hitting cannot be trusted, is it possible to draw such a steep downward graph? Furthermore, the starting lineup is in a collective slump.

The professional baseball team LG Twins has recently fallen into a 5-game losing streak. After starting with 7 consecutive wins and a record of 16 wins and 4 losses (winning percentage .800) in 20 games, their dominance as the 'absolute powerhouse' quickly disappeared.

LG has become 20 wins and 12 losses after the 5-game losing streak. The second-place teams are simultaneously on winning streaks, catching up. Lotte has 20 wins, 1 draw, and 13 losses; Hanwha has 20 wins and 13 losses; and Samsung has 19 wins, 1 draw, and 13 losses, trailing by 0.5 to 1 game. Now, they could potentially drop to 3rd place in just one game.

This is because LG's hitting has frozen over just a week. LG has season batting average hitters Austin (.306), Park Dong-won (.306), Moon Bo-kyung (.302), and Kim Hyun-soo (.301) listed consecutively from 12th to 15th place in batting.

However, the recent batting average is devastating. During the period of the 5-game losing streak, the team's batting average is .179, which is at the bottom. They scored a total of 11 runs in 5 games, averaging 2.2 points. Even when expanding to the last 10 games, the team batting average is .198. LG's recent record for the last 10 games is 2 wins and 8 losses, the lowest winning percentage among the 10 teams. Their current pace is worse than Kiwoom (4 wins and 6 losses) and NC (3 wins and 7 losses), who are at the bottom.

In the last 10 games, Oh Ji-hwan has a batting average of .095, Moon Sung-ju .121, Shin Min-jae .100, Park Dong-won .167, Moon Bo-kyung .188, Kim Hyun-soo .194. Hong Chang-ki is batting .200, and Park Hae-min is at .226. None of them can exceed an OPS of .700. At least Austin is struggling with a batting average of .342 and an OPS of 1.037.

During the 5-game losing streak, the players' performances were Kim Hyun-soo 16 at-bats 1 hit (.063), Moon Sung-ju 14 at-bats 1 hit (.071), Oh Ji-hwan 16 at-bats 2 hits (.125), Park Dong-won 14 at-bats 2 hits (.143), Moon Bo-kyung 18 at-bats 3 hits (.167), Hong Chang-ki 17 at-bats 3 hits (.176), Park Hae-min 16 at-bats 3 hits (.188). The starting 7 players are batting in the .100 range. Shin Min-jae has 10 at-bats 2 hits (.200), and Austin has 19 at-bats 5 hits (.263) as the only two-hitter.

Manager Yeom Kyung-yeop also appears flustered by the sudden collective slump. There are no injured players, and it is not yet a physical issue. Manager Yeom noted, “I’m trying to find the cause, but I can’t find it. I don’t know why it suddenly isn’t working. That’s why baseball is difficult.” They have no choice but to wait for time to resolve the issue.

LG will face SSG Landers on the 3rd at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium. SSG's starting pitcher is left-hander Kim Kwang-hyun. He has a season record of 1 win and 4 losses with an earned run average of 5.30. Among the 31 pitchers who have completed the regulation innings, he ranks last in earned run average. After winning in his first appearance of the season, he has lost 4 games in a row. In the last 3 games, he was battered for 5 runs, 5 runs, and 7 runs. His average earned run average over those 3 games is 10.29 (14 innings, 16 earned runs).

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