▲ Samsung's Yang Chang-seop
The Samsung Lions, who finished the first half of the professional baseball regular season in first place, secured a victory in their first game of the second half, maintaining their lead.
Samsung defeated the Lotte Giants 4-1 in a home game held today at Daegu Samsung Lions Park as part of the 2026 Shinhan SOL KBO League regular season, led by a strong pitching performance from local starter Yang Chang-seop.
With this win, Samsung extended its lead over the second-place LG Twins, who lost to the kt wiz today, to one game.
The Lions conceded a solo home run to Lotte's foreign hitter Victor Reyes in the top of the first inning, but leveled the score at 1-1 in the bottom of the inning with an RBI hit from Lewin Diaz.
In the bottom of the third inning, the team turned the game around to take a 2-1 lead following consecutive hits by Diaz and Ryu Ji-hyuk.
Maintaining a narrow one-run lead, Samsung added another run in the bottom of the sixth inning with a sacrifice fly to left field by Kim Ji-chan with one out and runners on first and third. In the bottom of the eighth, lead-off hitter Kim Young-woong hit a solo home run over the right-center fence to extend the lead to 4-1.
Yang Chang-seop, who took on the heavy responsibility of starting the first game of the second half in place of ace Ariel Jurado, who is sidelined with a shoulder injury, held the opposition to one run on six hits and three walks while striking out six over five innings to earn his eighth win of the season (zero losses).
Samsung's Kim Jae-yoon, the league leader in saves, struck out all three batters he faced in the ninth inning to record his 23rd save of the season.
(Photo: Courtesy of Samsung Lions, Yonhap News)
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