The San Diego Padres will host a youth clinic in Seoul on Saturday before playing in historic Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season openers in the South Korean capital next week.
The Padres announced on Tuesday (U.S. local time) that they will work with Park Chan-ho, former San Diego pitcher from South Korea, to host the clinic at Yongsan Children’s Park in central Seoul. The program will go from 12:45 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Saturday.
The clinic will feature two South Korean players on the Padres, infielder Kim Ha-seong and pitcher Go Woo-suk, along with All-Stars Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Joe Musgrove. Park, who pitched for the Padres from 2005 to 2006, and Padres CEO Erik Greupner will also be on hand.
Local children and U.S. military dependent children stationed in South Korea will participate in drills and visit with Padres players.
The Padres are scheduled to face the Los Angeles Dodgers in the two-game Seoul Series on March 20 and 21 at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. These will be the first
MLB games to be played in South Korea.
Kim is entering his fourth season with the Padres, while Go will be a big league rookie after signing a two-year contract in January.
Kim, who became the first Asian infielder to win a Gold Glove last year, is batting .304 in spring training with a .915 on-base plus slugging percentage. He went 0-for-3 against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Peoria Stadium in Peoria, Arizona, on Tuesday.
Go lowered his ERA to 12.46 after pitching a scoreless inning against the Diamondbacks in the same game. On Sunday, Go was rocked to the tune of five earned runs on four hits in only a third of an inning against the Los Angeles Angels.
The Padres will have 31 players making the trip to South Korea, but the roster must be trimmed to 26 by 11 a.m. next Wednesday before the regular season games.
Before their regular season games, the Padres and the Dodgers will each play two exhibition games. The Dodgers will take on the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) at noon Sunday
, followed by the Padres playing the South Korean national team at 7 p.m. Sunday.
Then on Monday, it will be the Padres against the KBO champions LG Twins at noon and the Dodgers playing the national team at 7 p.m. All four of these games will be at Gocheok, too.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
