When will it finally burst? Professional baseball player Esteban Florial of the Hanwha Eagles is the only foreign player among the 10 teams who has yet to record a hit.

Florial started as the third center fielder in the game against LG at the Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on the 25th. Florial went 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts, remaining silent.

He went down swinging on a 3-pitch strikeout with one out and a runner on first base in the first inning. Hernandez's 140 km cutter hit the lower corner of the ABS zone, so there was nothing he could do. He also went down swinging in the fourth inning. After hitting two foul balls, he went down swinging on a foul tip against Hernandez's 146 km fastball. He regretted missing a foul ball just outside the right field line.

Leading off the seventh inning, tied 0-0, he was put out on a ground ball to second base. Hernandez threw four consecutive fastballs at 143-147 km, but he couldn't make good contact. In the ninth inning, trailing 0-5, after two outs, he faced Kim Kang-ryul and hit a fastball at 143 km, but it went foul. On the second pitch, he attempted to hit a curveball but was out on a ground ball back to the pitcher.

That day, LG's starting pitcher Hernandez displayed impressive pitching, allowing only one hit in seven innings, but Florial's swing lacked punch. He was unable to time the fastball in the mid-140 km range properly.

Florial went hitless in 9 plate appearances with 8 at-bats and 1 walk during the opening two-game series against KT. That day, he went 0 for 4, marking a total of 0 hits over three games and 13 plate appearances. Along with Florial, Patrick Wisdom (KIA) and Jake Cave (Doosan), foreign players who entered the KBO league for the first time this year, also went hitless in the opening series.

However, Wisdom broke through on the 25th with a performance of 2 hits and a home run in 5 at-bats against Kiwoom. In the first inning, he grounded into a pitcher’s out with no outs and a runner on second, and after flying out to center field in the third, he recorded his first hit with a two-run home run over the left field wall off Kiwoom's starting pitcher Kim Yoon-ha in the fourth inning with one out and runners on first and second, marking his first hit after 11 plate appearances.

Cave also performed well on the 25th against KT in Suwon, going 2 for 3 with 1 walk and 1 RBI. He led off the second inning with a double that went over the left fielder's head. However, due to subsequent missed chances, he did not score. In the third inning, trailing 0-3, he hit a changeup from Koh Young Technology for a two-out single to right field, bringing in a run.

Florial is the only player without a hit in the first three games of the season. He recorded a batting average of .400 (8 hits in 20 at-bats) with an on-base percentage of .435, slugging percentage of .550, and OPS of .985 during the exhibition games. Although he had no home runs, he showed a decent hitting touch with 3 doubles, but since the season started, it has been challenging to find even one hit.

Hanwha signed Florial, a Major League Baseball player, for an aggregates of $850,000 (signing bonus of $50,000, annual salary of $700,000, and incentives of $100,000) last winter. Born in the Dominican Republic, right-handed hitter and left-handed thrower Esteban signed an international amateur contract with the New York Yankees in March 2015 and was nurtured in the minors as the team's top prospect.

In 2019, he was ranked as the top Yankees prospect by MLB Pipeline and Baseball America. Florial received high marks for baserunning, defense, and throwing, along with an evaluation of having above-average power.

Florial played with the Yankees until 2023 and was traded to the Cleveland Guardians in 2024. In five Major League seasons, Florial appeared in 245 games, recorded a batting average of .192 (41 hits in 213 at-bats), with 4 home runs, 22 RBIs, 23 runs, 26 walks, 82 strikeouts, 8 stolen bases, an on-base percentage of .291, slugging percentage of .329, and an OPS of .620.

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