Jung Hoo Lee's rookie season is over. The San Francisco Giants outfielder will have surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder, the team announced Friday. Lee suffered the injury when he crashed into the center field wall trying to make a catch this past Sunday. A second opinion confirmed the diagnosis and surgery recommendation.
Here's the play in which Lee suffered the injury:
"It takes a little while to kind of process this," Giants manager Bob Melvin said following Lee's injury (via MLB.com). "He's very team-oriented and wants to be out there for this team and, therefore, is disappointed. But there's not much you can do about it. You make an all-out effort like that to catch a ball in the first inning -- you make that play, and it's a huge momentum swing. And now, all of a sudden, our center fielder is down. We had to recover from that a little bit. But I'm sure he's feeling it right now. He wants to be out there for his team."
Lee, 25, signed a six-year contract worth $113 million with the Giants this past offseason. He had been a star with the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization prior to joining San Francisco, including winning KBO MVP in 2022. Lee is a career .340/.407/.491 hitter with more walks (383) than strikeouts (304) in seven seasons in KBO.
With the Giants this season, Lee authored a .262/.310/.331 batting line with two home runs in 37 games. His contact skills remained strong -- only 13 strikeouts with 10 walks in those 37 games -- and he played a solid center field. The expectation was Lee would need an adjustment period in MLB and that proved to be true.
The Giants welcomed Jorge Soler back from the injured list Friday -- he missed 11 games with a shoulder strain -- though they're still without five other position players in addition to Lee: Nick Ahmed (wrist sprain), Patrick Bailey (concussion), Michael Conforto (hamstring strain), Tom Murphy (knee sprain) and Austin Slater (concussion).
Entering play Friday, the Giants are 20-25 and 8.5 games behind the rival Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West. San Francisco had an active offseason -- they signed Lee, Matt Chapman, Blake Snell and others -- in an effort to rebound from last year's 79-82 showing. Instead, they're on pace to win 72 games.
This is Lee's second major injury in as many years. His 2023 season effectively ended in July because of a fractured left ankle that required surgery. The Heroes did activate Lee at the very end of the regular season so he could take one final farewell at-bat.
