PITTSBURGH — Jung Ho Kang grinned late Friday night as he balanced on a motorized scooter and zipped through pockets of pedestrian traffic in the hallway outside the Pittsburgh Pirates’ clubhouse.

Kang, 27, had been ruminating earlier on how much easier his cultural transition — moving this winter from South Korea to the United States — had been than he had expected. His English was improving, a word or a phrase at a time, and Pittsburgh was proving to be an easy place to live. He had even tried one of the city’s Korean restaurants.

“It wasn’t bad,” he said, smiling, after a diplomatic pause.

The fast camaraderie of a sports team has helped. Before the game that night against the Mets, Kang was waiting with some teammates to take batting practice and chuckled along to the banter volleying around in English and Spanish. Upon spotting a fan asleep in an otherwise empty section of the stands, they tossed a ball gently into his general vicinity and laughed as the fan awoke, confused.

Hours later, after getting his ninth hit in five games and knocking in a run, Kang hopped on his scooter — a gift each player received from the closer Mark Melancon — and rolled away amid a pack of his teammates.