With 1st place in sight, Eagles manager not looking past game at hand
Hanwha Eagles manager Kim Kyung-moon walks through the dugout after the seventh inning during a game against the Lotte Giants at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon, Sept. 12. Yonhap
With the top seed in the Korean baseball postseason suddenly within reach for his team, Hanwha Eagles manager Kim Kyung-moon said Thursday he will try to stay in the moment and not look past the immediate task at hand.
That will be trying to beat the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Thursday, as the Eagles are trying to chase down the LG Twins for first place in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). At 80-54-3 (wins-losses-ties), the Eagles are 2 1/2 games back of the Twins (83-52-3) with seven games to play. And three of those games will be against the Twins in a three-game series starting Friday in the Eagles' home of Daejeon.
The Eagles were 5 1/2 games out at the start of September but have since made things closer than expected. The upcoming series has been billed as the biggest one of this KBO season for either team, but Kim insisted he will only worry about Thursday's game.
"Every remaining game is important for us," Kim said in his pregame media availability. "But we have to take it one game at a time. We have to focus on trying to win today's game and not worry about what's going to happen later."
While the Bears are stuck in ninth place at 58-75-6 and have already been eliminated from postseason contention, they have a winning record against the Eagles at 8-6-1 — all the more reason for Kim to try to get his team to concentrate on Thursday's game.
The Eagles arrived at Jamsil well rested, not having played since Saturday. Their game against the SSG Landers scheduled for Wednesday was rained out.
Kim said the extra rest should help some of his relievers, though he was also worried about some rust.
"Many of our relievers have not pitched for a while," the manager said. "We'll see how things play out today but I think some of them will have to get into the game."
The Twins altered their starting rotation to have their top three starters lined up for Daejeon — Anders Tolhurst, Yonny Chirinos and Im Chan-kyu. The Eagles will counter with three of their best, Ryu Hyun-jin, Moon Dong-ju and Cody Ponce.
"I don't really know how their rotation will work, and we will just stick to our own plan," Kim said. "Since we'll be playing at home, we will have our fans behind us and they will fire us up."