Before shoulder injury, Jung Hoo Lee had ‘happiest moments of my baseball career’ in SF Giants debut

Lee, 25, will undergo season-ending surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.

SAN FRANCISCO — It took the Giants almost a week and multiple medical opinions before they could confirm what Jung Hoo Lee knew as soon as his left shoulder collided with the chain-link cutout in the center field fence Sunday afternoon.

“When I hit the fence, I knew at that moment that I had dislocated it,” Lee said Friday through interpreter Justin Han.

After 37 games, his rookie season is over. Lee, 25, will undergo surgery in the coming weeks to repair the labrum he tore on the play. Initial MRIs revealed structural damage, and a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles on Thursday confirmed the need for surgery.

“It’s not how I thought about ending my rookie season,” Lee said, addressing reporters for the first time since suffering the season-ending injury. “From all the baseball career I’ve had, this could be one of the most disappointing seasons I’ve had.”

At the same time, the rookie said the past six weeks “was the happiest moments of my baseball career.

“I’ll never forget the time here that I have spent this season,” he continued. “I’ll keep it in my heart for next season, and I’ll try to play better with that experience that I have. Baseball is something that I really love. I just really want to come back with a strong mind.”

The Giants expect Lee to recover in time to begin spring training at full strength in 2025, the second year of the six-year, $113 million contract he signed in December. Lee had a similar procedure in 2018 and returned without issue.

Recovery from the operation comes with a timeline of approximately six months, per Farhan Zaidi, the Giants’ president of baseball operations.

The parties involved weighed the possibility of putting off surgery until the offseason, Zaidi said, but “in this case, given his age and the fact that he’s injured the shoulder before and just the consensus medical opinion, it made sense to get this taken care of right away and give him as much of a head start preparing for 2025 as possible.”

Zaidi called the injury “a real bummer,” while manager Bob Melvin said losing Lee for the season “will take a little bit to sink in.”

Batting .262/.310/.331, Lee showed no trouble adjusting to the major leagues, where the pitchers throw harder and with more movement than they do in Korea and, to boot, the large majority of whom Lee had never before studied. His 9.6% strikeout rate put him in the company of Luis Arraez and Steven Kwan, two of the game’s purest contact hitters.

“We all saw he had a really patient approach, didn’t swing and miss much, which was good to see,” Zaidi said. “But we talked to him about all the first-pitch fastballs he was getting because he was a patient hitter who liked to see a pitch or two. We talked to him about being more aggressive and getting something to hit early in the count. Really the last week or 10 days before he got hurt, you were starting to see that. He was starting to ambush some first pitches.

“I think as much as anything to me it was from day one of spring training he never looked out of place. He looked like he belonged as a big leaguer. Seeing guys come from other leagues internationally, even guys who ascended to All-Star status here, they don’t always hit the ground running right when they start. So he started off way ahead of some other really good players I’ve seen come over, and I think that was the most impressive thing.”

What stood out from day one was the fire with which Lee plays and the effort he brought on every play, which ultimately was his downfall.

On the Giants’ first road trip of the season, Lee nearly ran a hole through the wall at Dodger Stadium, later joking, “I feel OK; I’m just worried about the fence.” That was on display again in Boston, charging to make a diving catch, and in Philadelphia, chasing down a deep fly ball and backhanding it with his glove.

“I never thought this would happen to me, so I would always put in 100% effort,” Lee said, citing the playing style of fellow Korean major leaguer Ha-Seong Kim. “When the ball is popped up into the air, my body reacts to it. But now I’ve got to have a second thought about whether I go for it or not. I want to put the importance on playing baseball out there, but I for sure did learn a lesson this time.”

Lee will spend the remainder of the season rehabbing with the team, going between its facilities in San Francisco and Arizona.

In the meantime, the Giants plan to continue to give Luis Matos an opportunity to play there every day.

“I think there was a little bit of an adjustment those first couple games in center field,” Zaidi said of Matos, 22. “We know he’s got the ability to play a good center field. We’ve seen it for stretches. I know our coaches are encouraged by the tools. They want him to be really aggressive. Outfield play comes easy to him, so it’s easy for him to kind of fly to the ball and play with that rhythm. But we’ve asked him to go all out, really cover as much ground as he can.”