KBO postseason picture getting clearer with teams reaching brink of elimination
KT Wiz manager Lee Kang-chul, right, celebrates with his players after the team's 6-3 win over the Samsung Lions in the clubs' Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at KT Wiz Park in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Sept. 21. Yonhap
With each passing day in the final stretch of the regular season, the postseason picture is becoming clearer in Korean baseball, with more teams reaching the brink of elimination.
The LG Twins and the Hanwha Eagles are locked into the top two spots in the 10-team Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), while the three remaining postseason tickets remain up for grabs.
The SSG Landers, at 70-62-4 (wins-losses-ties) through Tuesday, hold a two-game lead over the Samsung Lions (70-66-2) in third place. The Lions are up a half game on the KT Wiz (69-66-4).
The Lotte Giants (65-67-6) trail the Wiz by 2 1/2 games, while the NC Dinos (64-67-6) are another half game back in seventh place.
The Kia Tigers, the 2024 Korean Series champions, are a loss or a Wiz victory away from being eliminated from the postseason race at 62-71-4, which puts them six games behind the Wiz with seven games to play.
The Landers have cut their magic number to clinch a postseason spot to three. For both the Lions and the Wiz, the magic number to get into the October tournament is four.
The KBO postseason begins with the wild card series between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds. The higher-ranked team will get two cracks at getting at least a tie to advance, while the lower-ranked team must win two straight games to move on to the next stage.
The third-ranked team will get a bye to the best-of-five first round, where it will play the wild card winner.
The first-round winner will take on the No. 2 team from the regular season in the best-of-five second round. The winner of that series will advance to the Korean Series against the regular-season champion.
The Landers have the most games remaining with eight, including two against the Wiz.
The Lions face an easier schedule, as all six of their remaining games will be against clubs under .500 -- the Tigers, the Giants and the last-place Kiwoom Heroes.
The Wiz, meanwhile, have to play the Eagles once and the Landers twice among their five remaining games.
The Giants have been a major disappointment in the latter portion of the season. They entered the All-Star break in third place at 47-39-3 and were within four games of first place on Aug. 3. However, they dropped 12 straight games later that month and have posted the second-worst record in the second half at 18-28-3.
The Giants, whose last postseason trip came in 2017, must win at least five of their six remaining games and hope that the Lions and Wiz will lose theirs.
The Tigers are the only team that has been worse than the Giants since the All-Star break, with a 17-31-1 record. Without the reigning league MVP Kim Do-yeong for the majority of the season due to multiple hamstring injuries, the Tigers battled their way into the top four in June before fading away badly over the summer.