NC Dinos advance to Korean Series to face Doosan

Players of the NC Dinos celebrate their 8-3 win against the LG Twins during Game 4 of the second playoff round of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, Tuesday. With the win, the Dinos advance to the Korean Series to take on the Doosan Bears on Saturday. / Yonhap

By Baek Byung-yeul

The NC Dinos advanced to the championship series of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) after defeating the LG Twins 8-3 on Tuesday to win the best-of-five series of the second playoff round. This is the first time the team, which joined the league at the beginning of the 2013 season, reached the championship series.

The Changwon-based team will play in the best-of-seven Korean Series against the defending champion Doosan Bears starting on Saturday.

At Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, the Dinos’ starting pitcher Eric Hacker distinguished himself as one of the best players in the postseason, allowing only one run with six hits and three walks while pitching seven innings. With his performance, the American right hander was named MVP of the fourth game.

Third baseman Park Sok-min, who led the team’s offense throughout the second playoff round, was voted MVP of the series. Park, who hit a homer against Twins starter David Huff in the second game on Oct. 22, hit a home run off Huff again in the top of the seventh to give the Dinos a 2-1 lead. Though he went for 2-for-9 in the series, his two hits were home runs.

Also, the 31-year-old became the first player to play in the Korean Series for seven consecutive seasons. Making his professional baseball debut with the Samsung Lions in the 2004 season, Park appeared in the championship series for the Lions from 2010 to last season. He signed a four-year free agent deal worth 8.6 billion won ($7.5 million) with the Dinos during the offseason.

The Twins, who won the third game 2-1 on Monday, scored the first run in the bottom of the third inning. But the Dinos evened the score at 1-1 as first baseman Eric Thames hit a solo home run in the following inning. Park opened the seventh inning with a solo homerun to make the score 2-1 and center fielder Kim Seong added a two-run homer to left center off Huff to increase the Dinos’ cushion to 4-1.

The Dinos and the Twins exchanged runs in the eighth inning, but the Dinos added two more runs in the ninth with designated hitter Lee Ho-jun’s RBI double and catcher Kim Tae-gun’s RBI single.

The Dinos manager Kim Kyung-moon gave credit to Hacker and the batters for their homeruns.

“If we allowed runs in the early innings, the game would have gone in a whole different direction, but Hacker did great. And I was also surprised with Park and Kim’s home runs,” Kim said after the game.

The Korean Series would surely mean a lot to the manager.

Though the former Bears manager made it to the post season eight times before, he never hoisted the Korean Series title. Last season, the Dinos failed to advance to the championship series after losing to the Bears in the second playoff round.

“We still have the memory of defeat against the Bears from last year but we ought to be able to win against them this time,” Kim said.