The defending South Korean baseball champions KT Wiz beat the Kia Tigers 6-2 in their wild card game Thursday, taking a step toward a second straight title behind timely hitting and shutdown relief pitching.
The Wiz scored three runs each in the third and the eighth innings at KT Wiz Park in Suwon, 35 kilometers south of Seoul, and three relievers combined for 3 2/3 shutout innings after starter So Hyeong-jun held the Tigers to two runs — one unearned — over 5 1/3 innings.
The Wiz will now face the Kiwoom Heroes in the best-of-five first round series, which starts Sunday. As the higher seed at No. 3, the Heroes will have the home field advantage and host the first two games, and, if necessary, the fifth game at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul.
As the No. 4 seed, the Wiz only needed a tie or a win in the wild card game to advance to the next round. The fifth-seed Tigers had to win two straight games but came up short in the first try.
Since the wild card series was introduced in 2015, No. 4 seeds have advanced to the next stage every time. Only the 2016 Tigers and the 2021 Kiwoom Heroes even managed to win one game as the fifth seed.
Played before a sellout crowd of 17,600, this was the Wiz’s first postseason game at their home park and also the first postseason game in Suwon since 2006.
The Wiz competed in the 2020 and 2021 postseasons, but games were played at Gocheok Sky Dome as the neutral venue to protect players against cold November conditions, after the regular season schedules were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to the Wiz, the now-defunct Hyundai Unicorns used Suwon as their home. Their final playoff appearance in Suwon came on Oct. 14, 2006, and the team folded under financial trouble the next year.
The Wiz put up a three-spot in the bottom third to chase starter Sean Nolin, after the American left-hander had retired the game’s first six batters.
A walk, a sacrifice bunt, and a single had runners at first and second for Cho Yong-ho, who broke the ice with a two-run double off the right field wall.
Two batters later, Anthony Alford lined a single to right fielder Na Sung-bum, who had the ball carom off the heel of his glove and roll to the warning track. Cho scored easily to give the Wiz a 3-0 lead.
Nolin was pulled after walking the next batter, Park Byung-ho.
The Tigers had an immediate answer in the top fourth, with cleanup Socrates Brito delivering a single to drive in Ryu Ji-hyuk, who had led off the frame with a double.
So Hyeong-jun, who had been perfect through three, got into even more trouble when he walked Kim Sun-bin to load the bases. So then fell behind 2-0 against Hwang Dae-in, the only Tiger to have homered off So in the regular season, but battled back to strike him out swinging on a two-seam fastball.
The Tigers got another run back in the top fifth, courtesy of So’s error.
With speedy runner Park Chan-ho at second, Lee Chang-jin hit a dribbler toward the hole on the right. First baseman Kang Baek-ho fielded it and threw to So covering the bag, but the pitcher dropped the ball. Park, running on contact with two outs, scored easily to make it a 3-2 game.
Both teams wasted opportunities to put more runs on the board.
The Wiz bounced into double plays in the fifth and sixth innings. The Tigers couldn’t cash in after putting a tying run at second base in the sixth inning and then stranded two runners with one out in the seventh.
The Wiz failed to extend their lead after Bae Jung-dae led off the bottom seventh with a single.
And Bae took matters into his own hands to blow the game wide open in the bottom eighth.
The Tigers brought in starter Lee Eui-lee to begin the bottom eighth, but the left-hander walked the bases loaded before handing things over to Jang Hyun-sik.
At 1-1 count, Bae drove a slider into the left field corner for a bases-clearing double, putting the Wiz up 6-2.
KT starter Wes Benjamin struck out the side in the eighth, pitching on two days’ rest, and closer Kim Jae-yoon slammed the door shut in the ninth.
So, who struck out five and walked one, improved to 2-0 in his postseason career, with a sparkling 0.87 ERA.
KT manager Lee Kang-chul hailed So as “a big-game pitcher” and said his relievers were unsung heroes of the win.
Kim Min-su, in particular, had just one day off after throwing 87 pitches in six innings across his past four days.
“I felt terrible about sending him out there, but he’s been throwing better and better,” Lee said of the right-handed setup man. “He has also become stronger mentally in tough spots. He’s one guy that we can lean on in high-leverage situations.”
As for Bae, who has seven career walkoff hits and came up huge in another key spot Thursday, the manager said: “I think his focus sharpens in situations like this. He doesn’t miss pitches.”
Not having to play another wild card game should set up the Wiz’s rotation nicely, Lee added, since they will now have two days off before facing the Heroes.
“Kiwoom has powerful pitchers, and I think it’s going to be a good series,” Lee said. “But we now have time on our side to prepare for that series.”
Kia manager Kim Jong-kook put the loss on himself, saying he should have been quicker with the hook on Lee Eui-lee in the fateful eighth inning.
“When he got to two outs and runners at first and second, I told him to relax and make his pitches,” Kim said. “He has been great for us all year, and we were hoping he’d give us one clean inning. I felt that would have set us up nicely for the ninth-inning rally, but things just didn’t work out.”
Kim won three Korean Series titles as a player and one as a coach, but this was his postseason debut as manager. It was a learning experience for him, painful as it may be.
“I learned a lot from today, and I am sure some of the players who haven’t been on this stage for a while did the same,” Kim said. “We’ll try to reach greater heights next year.”
Source: Yonhap News Agency