Fading Lotte Giants seeking 1st win of September in KBO

Lotte Giants players celebrate their 5-1 win over the Doosan Bears in the teams' Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan, Aug. 31. Courtesy of Lotte Giants

Having lost their grip on a postseason berth in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the Lotte Giants will try to win their first game of September in a crucial, four-game week.

The Giants will enter the new week ranked sixth in the 10-team league standings, at 62-62-6 (wins-losses-ties). They opened August comfortably in third place, with a decent chance to move up to second place, but posted the league's worst record that month at 7-16-3. With three consecutive losses to begin September, the Giants are the only team without a win this month.

They are only a half game back of the KT Wiz (63-62-4) for the fifth and final playoff spot, but the Wiz have a game in hand. The NC Dinos (58-62-6) are two games behind the Giants in seventh place and have four games in hand on the Giants.

Among the six teams vying for the final three postseason spots — with the LG Twins (78-47-3) and the Hanwha Eagles (73-52-3) having pulled away as the two best clubs — the Giants have the fewest games left with 14.

They will play four of those this week -- two against the Eagles at home, Sajik Baseball Stadium in the southeastern city of Busan, on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by one against the eighth-place Kia Tigers (58-64-4) at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in the southern city of Gwangju, and then a home game against the third-place SSG Landers (65-58-4) on Saturday.

The Giants desperately need more from starter Vince Velasquez, whom they acquired in August to replace Tucker Davidson.

The move raised some eyebrows at the time, because Davidson had put up solid, if unspectacular, numbers, with a 10-5 record and a 3.65 ERA in 22 starts. The Giants rolled the dice and counted on Velasquez to help them take the next step.

Instead, they have regressed with Velasquez in the rotation. The right-hander has gone 1-4 with an 8.87 ERA in five starts. In only 23 1/3 innings, he has served up six home runs, while striking out 21 and walking 14.

Samsung Lions players celebrate after beating the Hanwha Eagles 4-3 in the teams' Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Daegu Samsung Lions Park in Daegu, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Samsung Lions

The Dinos and the Tigers, tied for the most games left with 18 each, will both have a six-game week. They will also each play four games at home.

The Tigers, the defending champions clinging to their postseason hopes by their fingertips, will open the week with two games against the streaky Samsung Lions (65-62-2), who have climbed from eighth place in late August to fourth place on the weekend.

The Lions once dropped five straight games in August and then bounced back with a 12-2-1 stretch, which included winning streaks of four games, five games and then three games.

The Twins, who have yet to lose consecutive games in the second half of the season, will try to further reduce their magic number for the pennant, currently at 12. They will play all six of their games in Seoul this week, with road games against the Kiwoom Heroes and the Doosan Bears, the league's two bottom feeders, followed by home games against the Wiz, the Dinos and the Tigers.