Incheon: The western city of Incheon had not been kind to Samsung Lions pitcher Choi Won-tae over his postseason career in South Korean baseball, but the 28-year-old right-hander finally exorcised his demons in earning his first playoff victory here Thursday. Choi threw six shutout innings and struck out eight batters to help the Lions beat the SSG Landers 5-2 in the opening game of their first-round series in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason at Incheon SSG Landers Field, some 30 kilometers west of Seoul. Choi was named the Player of the Game.
According to Yonhap News Agency, this was Choi’s fourth career postseason appearance in Incheon. In three earlier games, Choi had allowed eight earned runs in five innings and surrendered three home runs. The most devastating blow was the walk-off, three-run homer by the then Landers veteran Kim Kang-min in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2022 Korean Series, when Choi was pitching for the Kiwoom Heroes.
On top of his bad history in Incheon, Choi simply hadn’t been good in postseason play overall. He had an 11.16 ERA in his 18 previous playoff games before Thursday. He had not pitched more than four innings or struck out more than four batters in any of those outings. At least for one day, though, Choi altered the narrative with a tidy performance.
The Lions staked him to a 1-0 lead when leadoff man Lee Jae-hyeon homered on the very first pitch of the game, and that was all Choi would need. He struck out Park Seong-han on a changeup to start his game and pitched around a leadoff single in the second inning by getting three straight groundouts. Choi then struck out the side in the third, all of them with his fastballs.
Choi also had his changeup working in this game and struck out the dangerous slugger Choi Jeong with that pitch to end the fourth inning. Choi recorded two more strikeouts in the fifth, and then with a runner at first in the sixth inning, Choi got Guillermo Heredia to whiff on a 0-2 changeup in the dirt for his eighth and final strikeout of the game.
The usually stoic Choi pumped his right fist as he walked off the mound to a thunderous ovation from Lions fans in the seats over the third base dugout. Heredia had batted 8-for-11 with two doubles against Choi in the regular season this year but went 0-for-3 on Thursday.