Several statistical races going down to wire in KBO
Summary
Several KBO statistical races remain unsettled with teams having two to six regular-season games left before Monday’s scheduled finale. Kim Do-yeong leads Sam Hilliard and Austin Dean by one and two home runs, respectively, while Hilliard leads a tight RBI race. Victor Reyes and Choi Won-jun are tied at 199 hits, and Gwak Been leads the strikeout and ERA categories.
Key Facts
- The KBO home run race has Kim Do-yeong at 42, Sam Hilliard at 41 and Austin Dean at 40 through Monday.
- Hilliard leads the RBI standings with 128, only four ahead of Dean and Lewin Diaz, who are tied at 124.
- Victor Reyes has six games remaining to become the first player in KBO history with multiple 200-hit seasons.
- Koo Ja-wook leads the batting race with a.371 average and has already met the plate-appearance requirement despite a left hamstring injury.
- Gwak Been and Elvin Rodriguez share the strikeout lead with 186 each, while Gwak leads ERA at 2.26.
Kim Do-yeong of the Kia Tigers celebrates from second base after teammate Harold Castro hit a two-run home run against the KT Wiz during the teams' Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in the southwestern city of Gwangju, Wednesday. Yonhap
With all five postseason berths determined in Korean baseball, several individual statistical races are going down to the wire.
Teams in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) have two to six games remaining on the regular season, which is scheduled to end Monday.
The battle for the home run title is down to a trio of sluggers. Kim Do-yeong of the Kia Tigers leads the way with 42 dingers in 129 games through Monday — despite missing about two weeks in September to participate in the Asian Games in Japan.
Kim is trying to hold off two Americans — Sam Hilliard of the KT Wiz with 41 homers and Austin Dean of the LG Twins at 40.
Hilliard caught fire in September by launching 10 home runs, and Dean recently ended an 11-game homerless drought. Kim homered in his first game back from the Asian Games last Thursday and went deep again Monday.
The Tigers have six games remaining, two more than the Wiz and one more than the Twins.
Hilliard is the RBI leader with 128, but he is only four ahead of both Dean and Lewin Diaz of the Samsung Lions. Diaz's Lions have five games remaining.
Another close battle is underway in hits, where Choi Won-jun of the Wiz and Victor Reyes of the Lotte Giants are tied for the KBO lead at 199.
Reyes led the league in hits in each of the past two years, and did so in 2024 with the KBO-record total of 202.
The Venezuelan hitting machine is trying to become the first player in KBO history with multiple 200-hit seasons and he has six games left in which to get to the milestone. The 32-year-old has played every game since joining the Giants in 2024 — 426 games and counting.
Choi, meanwhile, has a sizable lead in the runs scored category with 120, seven more than Kim Do-yeong of the Kia Tigers.
Lions outfielder Koo Ja-wook seems to have locked down his first career batting title with a .371 mark, with Reyes sitting in a distant second at .358. Koo has not played since last Wednesday due to a left hamstring injury and is not expected back in the regular season. Koo has already accumulated enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title.
In pitching categories, Gwak Been of the Doosan Bears and Elvin Rodriguez of the Giants are tied at the top in the strikeout leaderboard with 186 each.
Gwak also leads the way in ERA with 2.26, comfortably ahead of his teammate, Choi Min-seok, who has a 2.92 ERA.
Three pitchers share the KBO lead with 14 wins — Choi, Im Chan-kyu of the Twins and Ko Young-pyo of the Wiz. If no one from that trio earns the 15th win, then 14 would end up being the lowest total for a KBO leader since 2013.
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