LG’s Fall Baseball Dreams Within Reach: Can They Leapfrog SSG with a Single Win

(Yonhap News)

The LG Twins of the Korea Professional Baseball KBO League are just one win away from securing third place and advancing directly to the wildcard playoffs.

As of the morning of the 24th, LG is in 3rd place, 2.5 games ahead of the 4th place Doosan Bears. With 4 regular season games left, LG needs to win just one game to secure 3rd place on its own. The sooner they secure their ranking, the easier it will be to prepare for the fall baseball season, including managing the physical strength of the starting players, so they are determined to win against SSG Landers today.

SSG, which is in a fierce competition for the wild card, must win today’s game. They had climbed to 4th place with 6 consecutive wins, but the gap widened again after losing to Doosan the day before. SSG, which is currently in 6th place with the same game difference as KT Wiz but slightly behind in winning percentage, is going into the game with the determination to give it their all. In head-to-head records, LG is far ahead of SSG with 10 wins, 1 draw, and 4 losses. LG announced Lim Chan-gyu as the starting pitcher, and SSG announced Drew Anderson.

Likewise, KT, aiming for 5th place, will face Lotte Giants at home. With only 3 games remaining, KT is relatively disadvantaged and must win all remaining games and wait for the results of their rivals. Fortunately for KT, the remaining games are against Lotte and Kiwoom Heroes, who are far from the post-season competition. In particular, Kiwoom has been very strong this season with 12 wins and 2 losses. The fact that all remaining games are home games is also a big advantage for KT. KT will have Eom Sang-baek as the starting pitcher, and Lotte will have Kim Jin-wook on the mound.

Doosan, which secured 4th place with the previous day’s win, is getting closer to advancing to the fall baseball. If they win just one of the remaining 3 games, they will secure a joint 5th place, and if they win all of them, they will be able to play in the wild card game for 4th place. The games are scheduled to be played every two days, so there will not be much burden on pitcher management. Doosan, which will face NC Dinos on this day, will send Choi Seung-yong, who is adjusting to the starting rotation after returning from injury, as the starting pitcher. NC will start Lee Jae-hak.

Samsung Lions and KIA Tigers, who have already secured 1st and 2nd place, have announced Kim Dae-ho and Kim Do-hyun as their starting pitchers, respectively. With their rankings confirmed, Samsung is giving Kim Dae-ho, who joined the team as a developmental player this year, a chance to make his debut as a starter. The biggest point of interest in the game today is whether KIA’s Kim Do-young will achieve ’40 home runs-40 stolen bases’. Kim Do-young, who reached 38 home runs-40 stolen bases with 1 home run and 1 stolen base in the previous game, now has 2 home runs left to achieve the record. Attention is focused on whether Kim Do-young, who changed his batting order to 1st to record the record, can hit back-to-back home runs like Shohei Ohtani and achieve 40-40.

Meanwhile, Hanwha Eagles and Kiwoom announced that Lee Sang-kyu and Heisus will be starting pitchers.

△September 24th professional baseball game schedule

– LG vs SSG (Literature, 6:30 PM)

– Lotte vs KT (Suwon, 6:30 PM)

– NC vs Doosan (Jamsil, 6:30 PM)

– Samsung vs KIA (Gwangju 18:30)

– Hanwha vs. Kiwoom (Gocheok·6:30 PM)