Wil Myers had already worked a one-out walk when Ha-Seong Kim stepped to the plate in the ninth inning Thursday representing the tying run for the Padres.
The man charged with replacing Fernando Tatis Jr. the rest of the season did not swing for the fences.
He did not swing at all.
Instead, Kim watched a 98 mph fastball hit the outside corner. He did not expand his zone when Kyle Finnegan's next fastball slipped low and away. Kim spit on the splitter that dropped below the zone. After a 2-1 fastball missed high, Finnegan snuck one through the zone, high and tight, but Kim did not swing and walked to first base after home plate umpire Tripp Gibson missed the call.
Mission accomplished, even if the ultimate mission was lost one batter later when Jurickson Profar grounded into a game-ending double play.
"I'm never thinking about being the hero," Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae. "That's not my game. My goal is to try to have a solid at-bat, to try to help the team win the most. That at-bat that night, the best result was for me to get on base, to get a walk and I was able to get the best result."
Indeed.
The Padres have bona fide heroes in Manny Machado and newcomer Juan Soto. They have sidekicks in Josh Bell and Brandon Drury and Jake Cronenworth and Profar and others. That they will no longer welcome perhaps their biggest star could easily lead a lot of players in Kim's shoes into making the job bigger than it is, but the 26-year-old South Korean import is already well-practiced in what he needs to do in the wake of Tatis' season-ending suspension.
The Padres, after all, have not had Tatis at all this year.
Shoot, Kim did not even have the everyday job until wresting away CJ Abrams' half of the platoon early in the year with continued excellence on defense and strides at the plate that serve as a hope that his ceiling is not yet defined.
"When CJ was here, there were times (Kim) wasn't playing against righties; he was just playing against lefties," Padres manager Bob Melvin said. "Now he's getting at-bats against everybody. And you look at the numbers that he put up in Korea, he was an offensive guy, so I think he's just getting more and more comfortable seeing guys multiple times, getting consistent at-bats and he's having a nice year for us all the way around."
Of course, Kim was a hero in the KBO.
He won Gold Gloves on defense. He averaged nearly 20 homers a year over a six-year stretch, blasting as many as 30 in 2020 as he celebrated his blasts with a rocket-launch bit that suggests there's quite a bit more personality behind his somewhat guarded public face in the states.
Every so often, Kim pulls the curtains back, as he did while dancing in the dugout with Tatis during a game delay last year or even offering that his "six-pack" is the reason he was able to hop back onto his feet so soon after dashing face-first into the netting to reel in a pop-up in foul territory Sunday.
As unbelievable as that play was, it had become something of an expectation after Kim wowed as a fill-in at second, third and shortstop as a rookie, even as his bat often wilted under the pressure of believing each start was a fleeting opportunity to win at-bats the following day.
Now playing every day, it's not a huge surprise to find Kim's .985 fielding percentage tied for the MLB lead among qualifying shortstops and his nine defensive runs saved tied for 16th among all defenders.
His strides on offense, however, say as much about how far he's come since making his debut last year as it does about where his game can still go. Kim's .252/.329/.375 batting line over 429 plate appearances is not only significantly ahead of where he finished last year (.202/.270/.352 in 298 plate appearances), but since July 1 only Machado (.843 OPS) has been a more reliable producer than Kim (.783 OPS).
More home run power, Kim says, is coming as he continues to get comfortable in his first year in an everyday role.
"We all grow in this game," Machado said. "You learn from your mistakes, you learn from everything and he's definitely showing that he's making the adjustments that it takes to get to the highest level here in the U.S. and it's paying off."
One lesson that's really sunk in: He doesn't need to fill Tatis' shoes.
He needs to be Ha-Seong Kim.
"He's a really good friend and he's the type of guy we'll see for a long time on the baseball field," Kim said. "But with or without Tatis, from Day 1 of opening day, I come to the field, check the starting lineup to see if I'm in there and prepare the same as a starter as I do when I'm pinch-hitting or pinch-running.
"I try to keep the same mindset … and just try to do my job."
