Pro Baseball Playoff Game 1: Paddock vs. Nail Starting Pitcher Showdown

Samsung's Chris Paddock and KIA's James Nail will kick off Game 1 of the professional baseball playoffs.

Samsung manager Park Jin-man and KIA manager Lee Bum-ho announced the two pitchers as starters for Game 1 of the playoffs (best-of-five), which will be held tomorrow (October 25) at 2:00 p.m. at Daegu Samsung Lions Park.

Paddock, whom Samsung recruited last July as a blockbuster acquisition to help secure a championship, is a heavyweight pitcher with 32 wins, 43 losses, and a 4.83 ERA in 132 career Major League Baseball (MLB) appearances (119 starts).

Since debuting in the KBO League, he has appeared in 13 games, recording 7 wins, 3 losses, and a 2.95 ERA.

This will be Paddock's first real mound appearance in 16 days, having last pitched in relief for 3 innings against the SSG Landers on the 9th.

Nail, in his third year on the Korean stage, is the ace of the Tigers who led KIA to a combined championship in 2024.

He added 13 wins this season, bringing his KBO League career total to 33 wins.

He is an iron-armed pitcher who threw a league-high 183 innings among all 10 team pitchers in the regular season, averaging approximately 165 2/3 innings per year over the past three years.

In Game 1 of the semi-playoffs against the LG Twins, he laid the foundation for victory with a brilliant performance of 1 run allowed over 7 innings despite suffering from a cold and body aches.

In the 2024 Korean Series against Samsung, he appeared in 2 games, recording 1 win and a 2.53 ERA.

Looking at the head-to-head records for the season, Paddock struggled against KIA, appearing in 2 games with 2 losses and a 5.25 ERA.

In particular, he allowed a double and a home run to catcher Kim Tae-gun, giving up 6 RBIs.

He kept his primary target, Kim Do-young, in check at 1-for-6, but that single hit was a home run.

Nail pitched well against Samsung, appearing in 4 games with 2 wins and a 3.24 ERA.

While he held batting champion Koo Ja-wook to a batting average in the .200s and effectively bottled up Lewin Diaz and Choi Hyung-woo in the .100s, he struggled against table-setter Kim Sung-yoon, giving up 8 hits in 10 at-bats, and Kang Min-ho, who hit a home run and went 4-for-8.

(Photo courtesy of Samsung Lions, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.