▲ LG Twins players celebrate their victory after a professional baseball KBO League match against the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on October 7.
The "under-one-roof rivals" of Jamsil Baseball Stadium, the LG Twins and the Doosan Bears, will face each other for the 7th time in autumn baseball.
LG, which finished the regular season in 4th place, and Doosan, in 5th place, will play the Wild Card game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul at 6:30 PM on October 14.
If LG wins or draws this game, they will advance to the semi-playoffs (best-of-five series).
Doosan must win both games of the Wild Card series, which can stretch up to two games, to advance to the semi-playoffs.
This match will decide which team has to pack their gear first at Jamsil Baseball Stadium, their home turf that is scheduled to be demolished after this year.
Following 1993, 1998 (semi-playoffs for both), 2000, 2013 (playoffs for both), 2020, and 2021 (semi-playoffs for both), LG and Doosan are clashing in the postseason for the 7th time and the first time in 5 years, marking their first-ever meeting in the Wild Card game.
In autumn tournament matchups, Doosan has frequently eliminated LG.
While LG claimed the playoff tickets in 1993 and 1998, Doosan secured the upper-round berths in all 4 subsequent encounters.
In this season's head-to-head record, LG dominated Doosan with 11 wins, 1 draw, and 4 losses.
However, it is difficult to predict the outcome because LG's morale has dipped after pouring all their energy until the final day of the regular season to secure 3rd place only to fall short, whereas Doosan secured 5th place early on and has calmly prepared for the Wild Card game.
Doosan plans to deploy its one-two punch of Kwak Bin and Choi Min-seok to blunt LG's momentum.
In the 2024 Wild Card game, Doosan suffered two consecutive losses against kt wiz, becoming the first 4th-place team to be eliminated.
This time, they are challenging for an "upset" against LG.
LG must improve its batting lineup's scoring ability, which failed to revive even after September, to clear the first hurdle of autumn baseball.
With Go Woo-suk, who made a stellar return to the team after 3 years with 3 wins, 1 loss, 1 save, 5 holds, and a 1.57 ERA, unable to play in the postseason due to his absence, scoring more runs will be crucial to increasing their chances of victory.
LG has named Carlos Carrasco as its starting pitcher, while Doosan is sending out its ace Kwak Bin as expected.
Carrasco, who joined LG in August as a replacement foreign player, recorded 6 wins, 3 losses, and a 4.05 ERA in 11 regular-season games.
Having achieved 112 wins in the big leagues, the most ever by any foreign player who has played in the KBO League, he also pitched in 3 MLB postseason games for the Cleveland Guardians, posting a 3.86 ERA.
Carrasco's KBO League debut match was against Doosan.
At that time, Carrasco left a strong impression by maintaining a perfect game bid through the 7th inning.
For LG, which slipped into the wild card after engaging in a nail-biting battle for 3rd place with KIA until the final regular-season game on October 12, they have no choice but to hope Carrasco reproduces his stellar pitching from back then.
Doosan has chosen Kwak Bin, who captured two pitching titles this year, early on as its Game 1 starter.
Kwak Bin led the league in strikeouts and ERA with 11 wins, 7 losses, 197 strikeouts, and a 2.24 ERA across 27 regular-season games.
Without a doubt, Kwak Bin was the best pitcher in the KBO League this season.
Although there were once talks that he struggled in big games, he started the 1st game against Taiwan and the final against Japan at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games last month, delivering dominant performances with 1 run allowed over 12.1 innings and a 0.73 ERA to spearhead the country's 5th consecutive gold medal.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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