SSG·KIA who can’t work…Will Lotte’s fall baseball miracle come true for two consecutive wins?
Can the Lotte Giants pull off a fall baseball miracle?
Lotte swept the Hanwha Eagles for its second straight win to stay within striking distance of the fifth-place SSG Landers and KIA Tigers, who both lost on the same day.
Seventh-place Lotte (61 wins, 67 losses, 0.477) is now four games behind fifth-place SSG (65 wins, 3 losses, 0.508) and three games behind sixth-place KIA (63 wins, 2 losses, 0.500), which is the fall baseball minimum.
Lotte is pinning its hopes on a recent trend. Lotte is 6-4 in its last 10 games, ahead of SSG (3-1, 6-2) and KIA (3-7).
Lotte defeated Hanwha 3-0 in a home game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Sajik Stadium in Busan on Aug. 28.
Riding a two-game winning streak, the seventh-place LOTTE kept its postseason hopes alive until the end of the season.먹튀검증
LOTTE starter Barnes pitched six innings of 100-pitch, four-hit ball with two walks and nine strikeouts to improve to 10-0 on the season.
At the plate, two home runs led LOTTE to victory.
Jeon Jun-woo, the most experienced player in the LOTTE lineup, hit the game-winning two-run homer off Hanwha starter Ricardo Sanchez in the fourth inning.
It was his 15th home run of the season and his fifth against a former club in the league this season.
In the seventh inning, Son Sung-bin followed with his first career home run.
The 2021 Lotte first-round catching prospect tasted his first home run in his third season and 55th game in the first team.
■ Kiwoom, Hurado pick up 10th win of the season with 6 innings of 1-run ball…4-game winning streak snapped by SSG
In Gocheok, the league’s bottom-ranked Kiwoom Heroes extended their winning streak to four games with a 4-2 victory over the road-bound SSG.
In the second inning, leadoff hitter Song Sung-moon reached on an error by the shortstop and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Kim Hwi-jip, and Kim Byung-hwi opened the scoring with a single to right.
It was the first RBI of the year for Kim, who made his debut in 2020.
SSG tied the game at 1-1 in the top of the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Kim Sung-hyun, but Kiwoom answered right back in the bottom of the inning with an RBI single by Lee Ju-hyung.
In the seventh inning, Song Sung-moon’s bases-loaded walk and Kim Hwi-jip’s sacrifice fly plated two runs to put the game out of reach.
SSG got a run back in the bottom of the ninth on Ha Jae-hoon’s RBI single, but pinch-hitter Lee Jung-bum was stranded with two outs.
Kiwoom starter Ariel Furado improved to 10-8 on the season with six innings of four-hit ball, one walk, five strikeouts and one earned run.
NC scored the most runs in the KBO this season with 18, and Son led the league in batting average with four hits.
In Changwon, the NC Dinos recorded the most runs scored in the KBO this season with an 18-3 victory over KIA.
Third-place NC became the third team in the league to reach the 70-win plateau (57 L, 2 T) and extended its lead over the fourth-place Doosan Bears, who did not play on the day, to three games.
Down 0-1 in the bottom of the first inning, NC easily tied the game with a double by leadoff hitter Son As-seop and an RBI single by Park Min-woo.
With the hit, Son became the second player in KBO history to reach the 2,400-hit plateau.
In the second inning, they scored five runs on six hits and one walk to chase KIA starter Thomas Panoni off the mound.
KIA cut the deficit to 6-3 with a two-run homer by Socrates Brito in the top of the third, but NC scored six runs in the bottom of the inning, including two-run arches by Jason Martin and Oh Young-soo, to seal the win.
The league’s batting leader Son As-seop drove in four runs on four hits to raise his season batting average to .347, closing the gap on LG’s Hong Chang-ki (0.340), who is second in the league in that category.
NC rookie Park Han-yeol, who made a strong impression from his debut at-bat with a two-run double in the 11th inning of an extra-inning win over Changwon Doosan on April 24, hit his first career home run in the eighth inning.
It was the second time this season that NC scored a run off a starter in the league.
Samsung’s Choi Chae-heung earned his first win back from military service with six innings, 94 pitches, six hits, one walk, four strikeouts and one unearned run against LG. [Courtesy of the Samsung Lions]
Samsung’s Choi Chae-heung throws 6 innings of 1-run ball…first win in 15 games since returning in June
The Samsung Lions defeated the LG Twins behind a strong performance from left-handed pitcher Choi Chae-heung and a focused batting lineup.
Samsung beat visiting LG 11-1 on Monday at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul.
Choi, who had lost seven straight games since returning to the team in June after serving military service in the Armed Forces Athletic Corps (Commerce), earned his first victory of the season in 15 games.
After shutting down the LG bats with six innings of 94 pitches, six hits, one walk, four strikeouts and one unearned run, Choi harvested his first win in 737 days since September 21, 2021, against the Busan Lotte Giants.
The win snapped a four-game winning streak for LG, which until the day before had a “magic number” of six for first place in the regular season and was headed directly to the Korean Series for the first time in 29 years.
The Samsung bats wreaked havoc on the LG mound in the first inning.
With a leadoff single by Ryu Ji-hyuk and a triple by Kim Hyun-joon in the second, Samsung scored two runs in the first inning.
In the fourth inning, seven of the nine batters, starting with Oh Jae-il in the fifth and ending with Jose Pirela in the fourth, reached base, scoring five runs and pulling LG starter Lee Jung-yong off the mound.
After one inning, Samsung extended its lead to 9-0 on an RBI double by Lee Jae-hyun.
In the sixth inning, Lee Sung-kyu singled and Lee Byung-heon scored two runs on a sacrifice fly.
Samsung, which pounded out 15 hits, had its first all-star lineup of the season.
Pirela led the offense with a 3-for-5 performance, while Ryu Ji-hyuk, Koo Ja-uk, and Lee Sung-gyu each had two hits.
LG’s bench rested all but infielder Kim Min-seong and outfielder Lee Jae-won from the starting lineup as momentum shifted in the middle of the game.