The ‘favorite’ KIA Tigers continued their early-season cruise with a victory over the Doosan Bears behind the play of ‘transfer student’ Seo Gun-chang.
The Tigers defeated Doosan 9-3 on Wednesday at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, in the first game of the KBO Baseball League 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank Baseball League.
After winning four straight games, including the opening game, and suffering its first loss of the season in an 0-8 defeat to Doosan on Oct. 30, KIA avoided a losing streak and improved to 5-1 on the season.
Seo Gun-chang was the main contributor to the fifth win of the season.
With the score tied at 0-0 in the top of the fifth inning, Seo opened the inning with a single to left-center field.
It was Seo’s first hit since joining KIA, and he immediately stole second base.
Han Jun-soo’s hit by pitch put runners on first and second, 바카라사이트 and Choi Won-joon singled to left to bring Seo home.
With runners on first and second, Kia added two more runs when Park Chan-ho’s high fly ball landed in front of Doosan left fielder Kim Jae-hwan for a lucky double.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Doosan had runners on first and second with nobody out, but Kim Jae-hwan, Yang Seok-hwan, and Kang Seung-ho all struck out to end the threat.
After surviving the threat,
Kia made it 4-0 in the top of the seventh when Seo Gun-chang singled, Han Jun-soo doubled, and Park Chan-ho was hit by a pitch to load the bases before Kim Do-young scored on a wild pitch from Doosan right-handed reliever Choi Ji-kang. Seo was the next to reach home.
In the top of the eighth inning, with the score 5-0, Seo doubled to right field with two outs and scored on Kim Ho-ryung’s single to left center. With runners on first and third in the ninth inning, Seo singled to right field.
On the day, Seo went 3-for-4 with a double, a walk, two RBI, three runs scored and a stolen base, marking his first hit, RBI, run scored and stolen base since joining the club.
After graduating from Gwangju Il-Go,
Seo joined LG in 2008 as a developmental player and has been playing in the first team since 2012, when he was a member of the Nexen Heroes (now Kiwoom), and has been one of the KBO’s leading shifters.
He played in 1,256 games until last year, amassing a career batting average of .297 with 1,365 hits, 491 RBIs, and 229 stolen bases.
In 2014, 사설 토토사이트 he became the first KBO player to reach 200 hits in a single season (201) and was named the regular season Most Valuable Player (MVP).
However, he went into a severe slump in 2021 and was traded to LG, where he was not even a starter.
After requesting his release from LG at the end of the 2023 season, Seo joined KIA and quickly became a key player in the team’s victory.
Yoon Young-cheol, a second-year KIA high school starter, pitched five innings of three-hit ball with no runs and five strikeouts in his first start of the season to earn his first win.
