Despite the difficult situation, the ace pulled out as many innings as possible. However, the Lotte Giants are now in a situation where they will accept the elimination of the fall baseball league as their last-minute concentration falters.
Lotte failed to keep its three-point lead in the away game of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League regular season against the Hanwha Eagles at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on the 22nd and suffered a come-from-behind loss of 4-8.
After losing for three consecutive games, Lotte has posted a season-high 62 wins, 71 losses and four draws (winning rate of 0.471). The gap was 4.5 games with fifth-ranked SSG Landers, and four games with sixth-ranked KT Wiz. If Lotte loses the match against Hanwha on Sunday or SSG wins the match against the Doosan Bears on the same day, it will be eliminated from the postseason.
On the day, Lotte earned points through persistent play against Ryan Weiss, its opponent’s one-two punch, from the beginning. Victor Reyes scored a timely hit to the right in the bottom of the first inning with a chance made by leadoff hitter Hwang Sung-bin’s infield hit and a throwing error to the third base. However, with the bases loaded with one outs, second baseman Son Ho-young failed to return to base and was out, failing to score additional points.
Afterwards, Lotte also had a chance to hit first and third bases with one out in the third inning with Reyes’ walk and Son Ho-young’s hit. Here, the opponent team made a wild pitch and Yoon Dong-hee’s timely hit to the left, leading the team to a 3-0 run. Starter Charlie Barnes allowed An Chi-hong to hit a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning, but Ko Seung-min’s RBI double in the top of the sixth inning allowed Lotte to take a three-run lead in the second half of the game.
In the bottom of the doomed seventh inning, Hanwha got a chance to load the bases with no outs with three consecutive hits by leadoff batters Jang Jin-hyuk, Hwang Young-mook, and Lee Jae-won. When Jonathan Ferraza grounded out, the Hanwha Eagles got a run, as only the second baseman was out. However, Kwon Kwang-min swung and struck out, resulting in two outs.
Back then, Barnes already pitched more than 110 pitches, but Lotte left the pitcher intact. However, No. 3 Moon Hyun-bin hit through Barnes’ 112th pitch, calling in a runner at third base with a hit in front of center field. Lotte eventually replaced Han with Ryu who threw the mound, but it was too late. 메이저사이트
Han Hyun-hee allowed Noh Si-hwan to tie the game at 4-4 as soon as he took the mound, and caused a bases-loaded crisis with a hit over the height of right field. Lotte hurriedly changed the pitcher back to Kim Sang-soo, but eventually allowed An Chi-hong to come from behind by giving up a walk.
Nonetheless, Chung garnered two out-counts. However, with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, Lotte lowered Chung and put up Koo Seung-min, and when Lee Jin-young grounded out to shortstop following a pitch hit by Lee Jae-won, Park Seung-wook failed to handle it properly and piled up runners. Even sixth pitcher Song Jae-young gave up a walk to Moon Hyun-bin and hit Choi In-ho with a two-run timely hit, and the replaced pitcher Na Kyun-an also allowed Chae Eun-seong, the first batter, to make a timely hit. In fact, the battle was decided in this regard.
A total of seven pitchers took the mound on the day. However, after starting pitcher Barnes threw 112 pitches in six ⅔ innings, the six relief pitchers who came up to the mound managed to garner a total of four outs. Key players including Han Hyun-hee, Kim Sang-soo, and Koo Seung-min failed to post an out count at all. On top of that, Lotte’s mistakes that hampered the team in the second half also came at a critical moment on the day.
Ahead of this season, Lotte brought in Kim Tae-hyung, a three-time Korean Series champion, on a three-year contract. That made people have high expectations for the season. With manager Kim’s arrival, there were many positive effects, such as the completion of the rebuilding of the fielders, but in the end, it is now ahead of the fall baseball elimination.
