Fort Loramie native Jared Hoying is off to a hot start in the Korea Baseball Organization.

Hoying is batting .500 through his first four games with the Hanwha Eagles with one home run, three stolen bases and 3 RBIs to his credit. He was 3 for 4 from the plate in the team’s opener last Saturday with a triple and one stolen base.

Hoying wrote in an email that the opening day experience in the South Korean league was different from that in the United States.

“Opening day in Korean was one to remember,” Hoying wrote. “There was a big ceremony before the game started with dancers and cheerleaders all over the field. They then introduced each member of both teams. I didn’t know what to expect once the game started, but it was definitely the rowdiest crowd I’ve ever played in front of. Music playing the whole game with cheerleaders dancing on the dugouts the whole time. It was a party in the stands.”

Hoying said there’s an expectation among teams in the league that foreign players with professional experience in America will hit home runs every at-bat. As a result of that expectation, he said Hanwha’s opponent in the opener used an extreme shift which moved the third baseman to where the shortstop normally plays and moved the shortstop behind second base.

“My first at-bat in the KBO is something I will laugh at for a long time,” Hoying wrote. “… So after seeing (the shift), I executed a perfect bunt or ‘shift-beater’ as we call them down the third base line and walked into first base for my first KBO hit. On the very next pitch I stole second. Everyone was quite baffled at what I had just done. Pretty funny.”

Statistics on Hoying can be found online on the KBO’s English website: eng.koreabaseball.com.