It's over. I hope the Lions have the flights booked and golf clubs ready. It's going to be a long winter.
Last night's game was not played in the nicest of conditions. When you have guys doing this to the field 10 minutes before game time, you're in trouble.
"Victory is ours!"
The Korea Times needs to hire an editor. I don't know who taught this guy to write articles like this, but he or she needs to be beaten. "Paragraphs? What are those?"
Aaron at the EWC had written a more accurate, more coherent account of last night's events.
On to the round up...
Doosan 5, Samsung 2
W - Jeong Jae-hoon, L - Yoon Seong-hwan, S - Lee Jae-woo
Doosan wins the series, 4-2
If this were a regular season game, it probably wouldn't have been played. The field was wet at the start of the game and the drizzle was constant for about 5 innings.
Yoon Seong-hwan lasted about as long as was expected. Yoon triumphantly took his start into the 2nd inning! He was probably wondering what Lee Sang-mok is so afraid of. Yoon lasted 1 1/3 innings yesterday. He allowed 2 runs on 2 hits, 3 walks and 1 HBP. Somehow, he struck out a batter. Samsung would use 7 different pitchers to piece together last night's game. Ahn Ji-man tossed 3 1/3 scoreless last night.
Doosan's Kim Hyeon-su drove in the 1st Doosan run in the first inning. Lee Jong-wook scored on his sac fly. Ko Yeong-min drove in the 2nd run on a sac fly to shallow left with the bases loaded. Oh Jae-won came in juuuuust before the throw made it to the plate.
Samsung cut the 2-0 deficit in half in the 4th inning. Jin Kab-yong scored on Park Jin-man's sac fly to center. Doosan answered back with 2 more runs in the bottom of the 4th inning. With runners on 1st and 2nd with one out, Lee Jong-wook drove a single into left to score Doosan's 3rd run. Then, with 2 outs and the bases loaded, Kim Dong-ju drew a walk from Samsung reliever, Ahn Ji-man. Kim quickly thanked Ahn for the free RBI. Next, Ahn battled the Doosan DH, Hong Seong-heun and eventually got him to fly out right. I love what I've seen from Ahn during the playoffs. I wouldn't be surprised to see him starting next season.
Samsung cut the deficit in half again during the 5th inning. With two outs and runners on 1st and 2nd, Park Seok-min singled to drive in a run and make the score 4-2. Then, in the 8th inning, with runners on 3rd and 1st and no outs, Lee Jong-wook laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to push across Doosan's 5th run of the game.
Doosan closer, Lee Jae-woo, came in during the 7th inning and stayed in until the final out was recorded. He faced 7 batters and sent all 7 back to the bench. Of the 20 pitches he threw, 17 were strikes. Lee was totally locked in. He drove the final nails into Samsung's coffin.
As a Samsung fan, it sucks to get eliminated, but I feel awfully positive about these guys for next season. I like the Samsung offense and bullpen a lot more now than I did at the beginning of the season. If injured slugger Shim Chang-su comes back healthy and management can find two reliable foreign starters, there's no reason Samsung can't be right back in the middle of things next year.
The Korean Series starts Sunday afternoon at 2pm in Incheon's beautiful Munhak Stadium. I'm assuming Kim Kwang-hyeon will start for the SK Wyverns. I have no idea who's going for the Doosan Bears. Kim Sun-woo, perhaps? My quick Korean Series prediction? An SK sweep. I think all the games will be close, but SK is just too deep and too talented for a burned out Bears team.
2 comments:
I'm inclined to agree with your prediction about the Korea Series. Doosan's starting pitching isn't great and the bull pen is very unreliable. They got away with a few poor performances against the Lions and made some great plays on defense to get out of tricky situations. A lot will depend on how flat SK are at the start. Last year they were very flat indeed. If Doosan can hit as well against SK as they did against Samsung maybe they can win a game or two though.
Seems like the Korea Times article might have been taken down. The link doesn't work and I couldn't find it by going to the front page.
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