Kim Do-young Secures Home Run Title with Game-Winning Homer, Leading KIA Straight to Semi-Playoffs

[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)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.