Professional baseball’s 2023 schedule begins in earnest this week.
The irregularity of the reserve season, which is organized after a pre-planned schedule that includes games canceled due to rain or fine dust every year, is the hallmark of the season. Each team has played a different number of games, so the remaining schedule is naturally jagged.
As of the 11th, the Kiwoom Heroes have played the most games, 131 out of 144, with only 13 games left. The KIA Tigers, who have played the least amount of games (114), have 30 more games to finish the regular season.
Looking at this week’s schedule, KIA will play the Samsung Lions in Daegu on the 12th before traveling to Gwangju for a five-game series against the Lotte Giants and Doosan Bears. That’s a lot of back-to-back games, and they won’t be able to take a day off.
Kiwoom, on the other hand, will have the week off from Dec. 12-14 before finishing the week with a two-game series against Lotte in Busan on Dec. 15-16.스포츠토토
(SEOUL) KIA’s Park Chan-ho (second from left) high-fives head coach Kim Jong-kook after the team’s home game against LG at Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on Monday.
Instead of getting 12-13 days off, the leaders LG Twins were handed a tricky schedule, traveling to Changwon (NC Dinos) on the 14th, Daejeon (Hanwha Eagles) on the 15th, Jamsil Stadium in Seoul (SSG Landers) on the 16th, and even playing a doubleheader with SSG on the 17th.
Second-place KT WIZ’s schedule is no easier, with trips to Incheon (SSG), Changwon (NC), and Daejeon (Hanwha).
With the Korean National Baseball Team competing in the Hangzhou Asian Games after the 22nd game, their performance in the next ten days will determine the fate of the fall baseball competitors.
How the six top teams – LG, KT, NC, KIA, SSG, and Doosan – position themselves in the standings will be key to watching.
LG, which is 5.5 games ahead of the second-place group, needs to widen the gap to reach the Korean Series for the first time in 21 years, while kt, NC, KIA, and SSG, which are all within two games of each other, need to accumulate more wins to join the fall baseball program in a higher position.
Doosan, who must knock off one of the teams in the second place group to enjoy the fall, fights with the mentality of ‘every game is a final’.
SSG wins 2-1
The two-game series between SSG and Doosan (Aug. 13-14), the three-game series between SSG and LG (Aug. 16-17), and the three-game series between Doosan and KIA (Aug. 15-17) are considered crucial to define the top of the standings.
Doosan, which trails fifth-place SSG by three games, will need two straight wins on Dec. 13-14 to travel to Gwangju with a light heart. SSG is also in trouble if they lose back-to-back games, so they’ll be looking for a half-hearted strategy to at least maintain their current tie with Doosan.
After a nine-game winning streak followed by a losing streak and then a three-game winning streak, KIA will face a tough schedule this week with the help of a minefield batting lineup.
KIA’s bats have been on fire since August 24, when they began their winning streak, leading the team in batting average (.332), runs scored (107), and on-base percentage (.483).