Matchup between the first and second places was held for two consecutive days. Goddess of Fortune smiled at the front-runner KIA Tigers.
KIA came from behind to win the game against Samsung Lions six to five at the Daegu Lions Park on Sunday. Having swept two consecutive games against second-ranked Samsung, Kia widened its gap with second-ranked Samsung by 6.5 games and reduced its magic number to 12 until it won the regular season title.
There was a thrilling reversal drama for two consecutive days.
Kia allowed Park Byung-ho to hit a grand slam in the second inning, falling behind 5-8 in the match against Samsung on April 31. However, its batters exploded.
However, Park Chan-ho’s three-run home run in the third inning tied the game 8-8.
When Samsung Diaz hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning, the team’s balance fell once again to 8-10. Diaz’s fourth homer of the season. He set a new homerun tie for the most homeruns in a season for a batter other than Samsung this season in 11 games since his debut in the KBO League. 먹튀검증
McKinnon, who was Samsung’s third foreign hitter this season, had four homers in 72 games in the first half of the season. Lack of homers was the cause of his absence. Cardenas, the second foreign hitter, had two homers in seven games before being replaced by an injury.
Diaz’s home run production pace is six times that of McKinnon. Arithmetic calculations show that if Diaz maintained the same pace, he could have hit more than 20 home runs in the first half alone.
Park Byung-ho’s grand slam and Diaz’s fourth home run were unfortunately buried in the upset loss.
Early in the sixth inning with a 12-10 lead. The god of bad luck hit Rafak.
When Lee Sang-min allowed Na to get on base with four outs, Samsung pulled Oh’s card. Kim Sun-bin hit a inflection hit to the first base, sending Oh to the first and second bases with no outs. However, Oh struck out Lee Woo-sung and Han Jun-su, making it with two outs in a row.
After making a 2B2S ball count in favor of Choi Won-joon, he shoved a 144km fastball into his body. Due to slow timing, the thinly missed ball near the handle slightly exceeded Oh’s height. He followed the ball quickly and threw it to one-bound, but he was safe by a short distance. If he had caught it, the inning would have ended. This one ball became a spark.
Park Chan-ho’s two-run timely hit was made, and Oh Seung-hwan was changed to Choi Ji-kwang. Socrates’ missed two-run double followed, allowing a 12-14 turnaround.
Samsung manager Park Jin-man said the following day, “It collapsed due to one detail. Oh Seung-hwan came up and struck out two well, and Choi Won-joon (with two outs and runners on the first and second bases) is regrettable. If he handled the missed ball, that would have ended there.”
The bad luck continued into the next day. Samsung successfully replaced Park with a two-run home run in consecutive at-bats for the second and third innings from Kia’s new foreign stout, who made his KBO debut. Samsung took the lead by 5 to 1, but bad luck started again in the second half.
Taking the mound in the top of the seventh inning with a 5-3 lead, “Bulpen ace” Choi Ji-kwang sprained his ankle. He allowed a solo shot to catch up to the leadoff Kim Do-young. He hit his first homer in 32 games this season.
After being chased by a one-run gap, Choi left the mound as he felt uncomfortable with his left ankle right before throwing the fifth pitch in 2B2S during Choi’s at-bat. Oh Seung-hwan, who was not fully warmed up, hurriedly took the mound.
Oh struck out Choi with a fork ball, but gave up a 5-5 tie after a solo homer by his successor, Na Sung-bum. In the end, Samsung allowed Lee to hit the final hit in the ninth inning and lost the game 5-6.
The two consecutive games in Daegu marked a watershed moment in the lead race. It was none other than “bad luck” that hindered Samsung, which sought to regain No. 1 ranking. Unfortunately, the two weekend games that reminded people of the importance of “picking up trash” have ended.
