Byung Ho Park is off to a pretty good start at Spring Training with the Twins.
The 29-year-old rookie from South Korea is hitting .313 with 2 home runs and 6 RBIs through six games; he leads the Twins in both homers and RBIs, but it’s still not quite time to break out the nickname he had in the Korean Baseball Organization.
According to Mike Berardino, Park’s nickname whiling playing in the Korean minor leagues was “The Barry Bonds of the Korean Minors.”
As luck would have it, Park and the Twins are playing the Miami Marlins on Friday – and Bonds is Miami’s hitting coach. So what’s Bonds think of Park’s nickname?
“Well, we’ll see,” he told Berardino.
Asked Barry Bonds about Byung Ho Park: "Is this his first year? Well, we’ll see."
— Mike BerardinoNDI (@MikeBerardino) March 11, 2016
Park is expected to be the opening day designated hitter while filling in for Joe Mauer at first base from time to time.
Park struck out a lot in Korea despite blasting 105 home runs over the last two seasons. Baseball America considers him to be one of the 20 best rookies entering the big leagues this season, but there are still a lot of questions about whether he’ll be able to catch up to MLB fastballs.
He proved he can hit the heater a little bit earlier this week when he homered off Toronto’s Gavin Floyd on a 92 mile per hour fastball, according to La Velle Neal.
