4th place, which has many advantages, has never been eliminated… There are only 3 rounds in the second round
Doosan and KT, 2nd wild card game in Jamsil at 2pm on the 3rd
It is said that even rivers and mountains change in 10 years. Could there be the first-ever case of 5th place taking 4th place in the wild card match, which is now in its 10th year of introduction? The challenger is the ‘10th team’ KT Wiz.
Doosan and KT will face off in the second game of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO postseason wild card decision held at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul at 2 p.m. on the 3rd.
KT won the first game held the previous day (the 2nd), and the game came to a close. The team that wins the second game will advance to the semi-playoffs and face the LG Twins, ranked third in the regular season.
In the wild card match introduced in 2015, the 4th place team’s probability of advancing to the semi-playoffs was ‘100%’. If they draw or win the first game, they can immediately move up to semi-PO, and even if they make it to the second game, they have a big advantage in that they will be playing at home.
There have only been three times in history that the 5th place team has advanced to the second game. The main characters were the KIA Tigers in 2016 and the Kiwoom Heroes in 2021, but both of them failed to complete the upset by losing to LG and Doosan, respectively, in the second game.
This time, KT aims to turn things around by winning the second game for the third time. KT advanced to the postseason for five consecutive years from 2020 to this year. Among them, this is a team with great game experience, winning the combined championship in 2021 and finishing runner-up in the Korean Series last year.
It is true that the conditions were worse. Even after playing 144 regular season games, KT had the same winning percentage as SSG Landers, so they had to play the first-ever ‘5th place match’. Even in this match, which was held as a single-game match, there was a lot of physical exhaustion due to the fierce battle with a one-point difference, and then the first game of the wild card decision was held in succession.
It looked like it would be a difficult game as they faced ‘natural enemy’ Kwak Bin, who had the worst compatibility during the regular season, but the batting line succeeded in attacking the team from the first inning and changed the flow. In addition, William Cuevas, who had been sluggish at the end of the regular season, showed off his ‘awakening mode’ and tightly tied up the Doosan batting lineup.
The score in the first game was 4-0, but it was no exaggeration to say that it was a ‘complete victory’ that inflicted great psychological damage on the opponent. For this reason, KT is raising expectations for the next game as well.
While Doosan’s main hitter Yang Eui-ji is still not in good shape, KT’s batting lineup is close to ‘complete’. Even on the mound, it is possible to operate much more easily by moving Go Young-pyo and So Hyun-jun to the bullpen. Since there was a 4-point gap in the previous day’s game, the two hidden cards could have been saved.
Several situations are increasing the possibility that KT will cause its first ‘upset’. KT coach Lee Kang-cheol also shows some confidence, saying, “Now is the time for 5th place to win at least once.”
On the other hand, Doosan must overcome the crisis of becoming the first ‘scapegoat’ in history.
In particular, Doosan coach Seung-yeop Lee finished 5th in the postseason last season, his first year in office, and ended with 1 loss in the wild card game. This time, he rose to 4th place, but was cornered again. This is a crisis that could lead to the unwelcome label of ‘a manager who is weak in the short term.’
From Doosan’s point of view, the fact that its players have accumulated more power gives them a comparative advantage.
Doosan had three days of rest after playing its final game on the 28th of last month. Thanks to this, the bullpen was able to endure the remaining eight innings without allowing a run even after Kwak Bin made an early decision in Game 1.
The problem is the batting lineup. In the first game, Doosan’s batting lineup was tightly tied to the KT mound to the point where it felt helpless. In particular, Kim Jae-hwan and Yang Seok-hwan, who were placed in numbers 4 and 5, were not in very good condition, so many chances were wasted.
In the end, with Yang Eui-ji missing, the overall weight seems to have decreased, and it is not easy for Yang Eui-ji to sortie in the second game. Coach Lee Seung-yeop said, “We will check whether Yang Eui-ji will play at the stadium before the second game.”
Regarding mound management, they predicted an all-out effort by keeping Kwak Bin, who was the starter in Game 1, and Jordan Balazovic, who pitched 4 innings in Game 1, on standby. In order to not allow an ‘upset’, Doosan naturally has to give everything.
(Seoul = News 1)
2024-10-03 16:28:38