There's no secret sauce to the type of defense Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim has played while plugging the $340 million gap created by wrist-rehabbing star Fernando Tatis Jr.
At Yatap High School in the Seoul suburb of Seongnam, Korea, it boiled down to old-fashioned hard work. Dust off the glove. Trot out to the infield. Let the repetitions pile up like late-fall firewood.
"When I was in high school, I can't count how many ground balls I took," Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae. "It was like unlimited fungoes."
