Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jung-Ho Kang is batting .295 this season and is making noise in the National League Rookie of the Year race. Kang is 28 years old and had been playing professionally in Korea since 2006 before signing with the Pirates prior to this season.
Still, there isn’t a wealth of major league data on him.
Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said before today’s game that this doesn’t mean the Dodgers will shift Kang more conservatively. The infielders will shift according to the data, even if there isn’t much data to go on.
For what it’s worth, this spray chart shows that Kang is mostly a pull hitter. A right-handed batter, Kang has put four balls in play against the Dodgers this series — three up the middle and one to right field. It looked like the Dodgers had him shaded properly in the third inning, when shortstop Jimmy Rollins gunned him down on a ground ball up the middle.