From the bottom to the top… Lee Kang-chul talks about ‘resilience’
They’ve jumped from the bottom to the top. And they’ve become a threat to the top spot. KT Wiz is on a roll.
KT was in last place at the start of the season. That was until May, when their win-loss margin dropped to -14. The team’s mood wasn’t great due to their poor performance, but they weren’t about to give up. They were only five games behind the mid-table teams. If KT could turn things around and go on a winning streak, they could make the leap.
The leap didn’t seem impossible, as KT had a history of rising from the bottom to the top. Last season, KT was also in the bottom half of the standings at the start of the season. After winning the title in 2021, KT fell to the bottom of the table less than a year later. However, the team continued to reduce its win-loss margin and eventually finished the regular season in fourth place.
So there was hope that KT could bounce back this year, especially with a solid mound, and the team quickly racked up wins in back-to-back games to sit atop the standings. As of the 29th, they had 62 wins, 2 ties, and 47 losses for a +15 win-loss margin.
After the 13th game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League between his team and the Samsung Lions was canceled due to rain on the 29th at Katie Wise Park in Suwon, Lee Kang-cheol met with the media and said, “I think something unbelievable happened. The players did so well. My expectations are getting higher and higher. At first I was relaxed, but now I’m not. I don’t want to drop in the rankings,” he laughed.메이저사이트
He went on to talk about ‘resilience’. It means the mental strength to use adversity, trials, and the awareness of failure as a springboard to jump higher. Lee said KT believes that even if they fall to the bottom of the table, they will be able to climb back to the top.
“Resilience is our strength,” Lee said. At first, I and the players all thought it was going to be tough. But as we kept climbing up the rankings, we changed our minds. It wasn’t going well in the beginning, but now it’s going well. Even when we were 10th, I thought our strength was not the worst. As our starting lineup became more stable, we were able to climb up,” he said.
KT is expected to be in a fierce battle for the top spot with the LG Twins until the end of the season. “I think the league will be interesting for the rest of the season,” said Lee Kang-cheol. It will be bloody for the parties, but I think it will be really fun for the fans,” he said, vowing to do his best to challenge for the top.