[Anchor]
The ultimate winner of the third-place race, which came down to the final day of the professional baseball regular season, was KIA. Superstar Kim Do-young led his team straight to the semi-playoffs with a game-winning home run that secured his home run king title.
Reporter Yu Byeongmin has the details.
[Reporter]
The battle for third place remained shrouded in fog until the very last day of the regular season.
When KIA's Park Jaehyun launched a leadoff solo home run in the first inning, LG responded in the second with Park Dong-won's solo shot over the left-field wall.
After KIA extended their lead in the fourth inning with one out and runners on first and third through Kim Sun-bin's exquisite squeeze bunt, LG tied the game 2-2 in the sixth with Moon Jung-bin's solo home run.
Go Woo-seok, who made an early relief appearance with one out in the fourth, kept the KIA bats at bay with a scoreless outing, striking out four batters through the seventh. But as soon as Go Woo-seok left the mound, KIA's Kim Do-young exploded.
In the eighth inning with no outs and a runner on first, he smashed a slider from changed pitcher Kennedy for a two-run homer over the center-field wall.
As his 45th of the season, it broke a tie with KT's Hilliard—who remained silent at the same time—to secure the home run title and lead his team directly to the semi-playoffs, sending Gwangju-Kia Champions Field into a frenzy.
KIA defeated LG 4-2 to finish the regular season in third place.
LG, wrapping up the season in fourth place, will play the first game of the wild-card series against Doosan starting tomorrow (the 14th).
The competition for the most hits title was also fierce until the final day.
Second-place Choi Won-jun of KT went 3-for-5 to finish the season with 208 hits, but Reyes collected 4 hits, including a solo home run in the sixth inning against Doosan at Jamsil, capturing the title with an all-time record 211 hits.
Meanwhile, with all three final games of the regular season selling out, this year's professional baseball pennant race drew a record-breaking 12,770,551 total spectators to bring down the curtain.
(Video Editing: Park Gi-deok)
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