After finishing ninth last year, the Doosan Bears are back in the KBO postseason for the first time in two years. Doosan secured at least a fifth-place finish with a 3-2 win over the visiting LG Twins in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Thursday, marking the final day of fall baseball. Chasing Doosan were the KIA Tigers (71 wins, 2 ties, 69 losses), who were eliminated from postseason contention at sixth place regardless of their remaining games. Manager Lee “The People’s Hitter” Seung-yeop gave the team a postseason berth upon taking over the reins at Doosan, which means all five teams that will compete in fall baseball in 2023 are set. LG topped the regular season and headed directly to the Korean Series for the first time in 29 years, since 1994, while KT Wiz finished second and headed to the playoffs.

The position of the three teams in third place – SSG Landers, NC Dinos, and Doosan – will depend on how they fare in the remaining games.After pounding out 10 hits and struggling to convert them into big runs, Doosan’s persistence paid off in the ninth inning.Doosan opened the scoring in the top of the second when Kang Seung-ho hit an infield single to shortstop that set up back-to-back singles by Yang Ji and Yang Seok-hwan.LG quickly tied the game after a pitching change with Austin Dean’s 23rd solo home run of the season to left-center field.The 1-1 lull was broken in the top of the seventh when Doosan’s leadoff hitter, Kim Jae-hwan, reached on an error by the first baseman.Following Kang Seung-ho’s sacrifice bunt, Kim rolled a bunt toward first base to send pinch runner Kim Tae-geun home.

After being held in check by Doosan starter Brandon Waddell, LG tied the game at 2-2 in the eighth against reliever Chung Chul-won.Lee Jae-won, the “big boy in the bullpen,” pulled a high slider from Jung Chul-won for a home run that landed in the left-field bleachers.Doosan’s efforts to erase the magic number one were desperate.In their final at-bat in the top of the ninth, Yang Seok-hwan drew a walk and Lee Seung-yeop brought in pinch-hitter Lee Yoo-chan.Lee immediately stole second base and reached third on the next batter’s grounder.Kang Seung-ho then came home on a grounder that landed in front of the right fielder.

Doosan had runners on first and second with no outs in the bottom of the ninth, but Kim Myung-shin struck out Austin, Oh Seung-hwan, and Moon Bo-kyung in succession to secure the victory and a trip to fall baseball. Samsung Lions reliever Oh Seung-hwan reached the 400-save milestone in the KBO in his final home game of the season against SSG Lander in Daegu. With his team leading 4-3 in the top of the eighth inning, Oh came in with the bases loaded and two outs to preserve a 5-3 victory. Seung-hwan Oh, who turned pro in a Samsung uniform in 2005, reached the 400-save milestone in 668 games. Combined with his 122 saves in the United States and Japan, Oh has 522 career saves .Seung-hwan Oh reached the 500-save mark in his Korean-American career on June 6 against the NC Dinos.

With Oh Seung-hwan on the mound, SSG brought in Kim Kang-min, who is the same age as Oh Seung-hwan at 41, and then replaced him with another 41-year-old, Choo Shin-soo .Choo spun his bat sharply on a three-ball, two-strike at-bat, but Samsung first baseman Lee Sung-kyu made a great catch of a hard-hit ball traveling over the first base line to take the pressure off Oh’s shoulders. Oh gave up walks to Oh Tae-gon and Han Yoo-seom in the ninth to put runners on first and second, but he got Guillermo Heredia to fly out to right field to get out of the jam .Then, after giving up a huge foul home run to Park Sung-ho that just missed the right field fence, he regained his composure and smiled as he lined it straight to left field.

With one game left in the regular season, Samsung used two foreign pitchers, David Buchanan and Taylor Widener, back-to-back for its final home game to give its fans a win .Trailing 1-3 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Samsung scored three runs with runners on first and second on back-to-back singles by Kang Min-ho and Ryu Ji-hyuk and a sacrifice fly by Jose Pirela to take a 4-3 lead. Lee Sung-gyu, who relieved Oh Seung-hwan in the bottom of the eighth, then drove in the winning run with a single to right-center field. The Hanwha Eagles swept the Lotte Giants 8-0 at home in Daejeon to end a six-game losing streak and escape last-place disgrace for the fourth straight year. With the win, Kiwoom Heroes are confirmed as the lowest-ranked team this season. Lotte is also locked into seventh place.

Hanwha slugger Noh Si-hwan collected his 100th RBI of the season with a grounder to shortstop in the first inning, becoming the second-youngest player in history to reach the 30-homer, 100-RBI milestone after Lee Seung-yeop (22). Noh will turn 23 in December .Noh, who has 31 home runs to his credit, reached 100 RBIs in a season for the first time since his debut in 2019 and increased his total to 101 with an infield single in the eighth inning. Hanwha took a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning on Nick Williams’ mid-month two-run homer and added three runs in the 카지노사이트 eighth to make it 5-0 and give Lotte the white flag. Williams led the way with four hits and four RBIs.