The Samsung Lions and the LG Twins will meet on the fall baseball stage for the first time in 22 years. Who is the team that will win the first game and occupy the upper hand in advancing to the Korean Series.
Samsung, led by head coach Park Jin-man, and LG, led by manager Yeom Kyung-yeop, will play the first round of the 2024 professional baseball KBO postseason playoffs (best out of five) at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu on the 13th. It is the first time in 22 years that Samsung and LG have met in autumn baseball since the 2002 Korean Series.
Samsung and LG met each other a total of five times in the past postseason. Starting with the Korean Series in 1990, they had showdowns in the 1993 playoffs, the 1997 playoffs, the 1998 playoffs, and the 2002 Korean Series.
In the three previous playoff matches, LG led the team with two wins and one loss. The team lost in 1993 (two wins and three losses), but advanced to the Korean Series by beating Samsung in both 1997 (three wins and two losses) and 1998 (three wins and one loss).
In two series, the Korean team won the title once each. In 1990, LG won the title with four wins and no losses, and in 2002, Samsung faced the championship with four wins and two losses.
So far, Samsung seems to have an advantage in this series. Having advanced directly to the playoffs by ranking second (78 wins, two draws and 64 losses) in the regular season league, LG had time to take rest and train. In comparison, LG, which is ranking third (76 wins, two draws and 66 losses), is physically inferior to the KT Wiz in a fierce battle to reach Game 5 in the semi-playoff.
Samsung has bad news, too. Along with first starter Connor Seabold, must-winner Choi Ji-kwang and left-hander Baek Jung-hyun are all out of the list due to injury. In addition, Oh Seung-hwan, the “finisher” who posted 427 saves in the KBO, was not listed on the list due to poor ball power. 메이저사이트
With the mound looser than ever, Samsung will deploy Denny Reyes as the starting pitcher for the first round. Reyes, who joined Samsung ahead of this season, is a right-handed pitcher who won 11 games, lost four, and posted an ERA of 3.81 in 26 games (144 innings) in the regular season. He met LG twice this year and posted one win and an ERA of 3.60.
The team’s batting average is not bad at all. Samsung ranks ninth among the 10 teams with 0.269 this year, but ranks first with 185 home runs. As Samsung Lions Park, the venue for the first game, is a batter-friendly stadium, Samsung needs to fully utilize its slugging capability. As mentioned earlier, however, Samsung players couldn’t afford to play actual games due to their breaks after the regular season. Recovering players’ sense of batting is a challenge for Samsung.
Against this backdrop, the LG Twins foretold Choi as a starting pitcher. Since receiving the nomination by the Heroes through the first round of nomination in 2015, Choi has been wearing LG’s pin-striped uniform since the 2023 season, and is a veteran right-hander who has posted 78 wins, 58 losses and 4.36 ERA in 217 games (1134.1 innings) so far this year. In this season, he pitched in 24 games (126.2 innings) with nine wins and seven losses and an ERA of 4.26 and pitched well against Samsung with one win and an ERA of 0.84.
However, Choi needs to overcome his “autumn phobia” in order to display good pitching on the day. He played in 15 postseason games until last year, but had one loss, one save and three holds with an ERA of 11.17. In the third game of the semi-playoff against KT, he was substituted early as he allowed five hits, one out, four strikeouts, three runs and two earned runs in 2.2 innings. As the bullpen used up a lot in the semi-playoff against KT, LG hopes that Choi can stably block long innings.
He is also relatively good at offense. He only had five hits and two runs in the first game of the semi-playoff, but his players gradually increased the sense of hitting. Notably, even Moon Bo-kyung, who failed to produce hits in the previous games, reported a hit in the fifth game. In addition, baseball, which posted a record of 12 stolen bases in the semi-playoff, is one of LG’s biggest weapons.
“We also have a lot of home run hitters. If we get a good batting performance, we will not lose to Samsung,” Yeom said after Game 5 of the semi-playoff. “What matters is how the bullpen will fight. I don’t think Samsung’s bullpen is good either. Wouldn’t it be similar? In the end, it’s important which team will show good performance in terms of offense.”
In the best-of-five playoff series, 75.8 percent (25/33) of the winning team will advance to the Korean Series. This means that the outcome of the first playoff will have a significant impact on this series. Attention is focusing on which of the two teams will have a 75.8 percent chance.
