Incheon: Two right-handed aces will go toe-to-toe in a crucial South Korean baseball postseason game this week. The SSG Landers and the Samsung Lions are tied at one game apiece in their first-round series in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason. The Lions took the first game 5-2 on Thursday at Incheon SSG Landers Field in Incheon, some 30 kilometers west of Seoul, and then the Landers responded with a 4-3 victory two days later at their home park.
According to Yonhap News Agency, when the best-of-five series resumes at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Daegu Samsung Lions Park in Daegu, about 235 km southeast of the capital, the Lions will have homegrown star Won Tae-in on the mound. Won went 12-4 with a 3.24 ERA in the regular season — his fifth straight year with a sub-4.00 ERA. Last Tuesday, Won fired six shutout innings and struck out five batters to help the Lions beat the NC Dinos 3-0 to win the wild card round and book a ticket to the series against the Landers.
Won made three regular-season starts against the Landers but did not have a win-loss record. He had a 3.71 ERA and surrendered 24 hits — more than against any opposing team — in 17 innings against them. The Landers batted .338 against Won. Guillermo Heredia went 4-for-5 with two doubles, while Ko Myeong-jun, who has hit two homers in this series, also had two doubles against Won.
Drew Anderson will start for the Landers after recovering from a bout with stomach flu. He was one of the most dominant pitchers in the KBO this year, finishing second overall with 245 strikeouts and third with a 2.25 ERA. The American righty held opponents to a league-low .193 batting average. Anderson went 1-0 with a 2.08 ERA in two outings against the Lions this year. He struck out 19 and held them to 10 hits in 13 innings, though two of those hits were homers — one each by the No. 3 hitter Koo Ja-wook and cleanup Lewin Diaz.
This will be Anderson’s KBO postseason debut.