Karim Garcia  playin’ some splish splash during yesterday’s rainout. Tonight Garcia and the Lotte Giants will face off against Doosan in Busan tonight. The pitching matchup will feature two pitchers who were both working in the U.S. minors last year — Busan native Seung Song  (6-3, 4.47), who spent over a decade in America playing in the Red Sox, Expos, Giants and Royals organizations (and was once part of a deal for Cliff Floyd), will battle against Justin Lehr, who was shelled in his first start in Korea and currently sports a 1-0 record and a 14.73 ERA.

Korea Beat just posted an article titled Quality of Foreign Baseball Players in Korea Increasing from the Sports Chosun. I suppose this piece is the antithesis of the articles circulating toward the beginning of May talking about how lousy all the foreigners were doing. No matter, there’s plenty of interesting tidbits including the following about Lehr:

On May 25th signed 31-year old Justin Lehr, who formerly played for Oakland and Milwaukee. Lehr is evaluated as a good prospect after having competed, with Derrick Turnbow, for a spot as Milwaukee’s closer in 2004 after Dan Kolb was traded to Atlanta.

In fact, when he signed with the Louisville Bats, a Triple-A club for the Cincinnati Reds, he inserted a clause in the contract reading, “if an offer is made by a South Korean professional club the transfer fee shall be waived.” Other minor leaguers are also watching vigilantly for interest from Korean teams.

So he’s had Korea in his sights for a while. Wonder what that’s all about. Id’ forgotten he’d competed for the closer job in Milwaukee. The fact that he lost the closer job — or any sort of throwing contest — to Turnbow has me wondering how he’ll do in Korea. In fact, I think Turnbow belongs on the list of Guys That Should Come Play in Asia.

Behind Garcia (in the photo above) is Lotte leadoff man Jung Soo-gun, who in his 14th year as a pro is hitting .306/.421/.367 and a 36/28 BB/K ratio. He’s also swiped 14 bases. I stopped counting the number of rainouts this season, but I assure you, the KBO will be playing well into late October.