Samsung hopes LG will put up a fight. But if KIA is aiming to win the Korean Series, a victory today is crucial for them, too

[Financial News] The Samsung Lions, having secured a direct ticket to the playoffs and waiting in Daegu for the fall postseason, have their eyes fixed on Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul today (the 20th). The Semi-Playoff Game 3 should be someone else’s celebration, but the result of this game is directly tied to Samsung’s chances of reaching the Korean Series (KS).
The semi-playoffs are currently entirely dominated by the Kia Tigers. After sweeping the first two games in Gwangju, 5–1 and 6–3, KIA took a 2–0 lead in the series. Historically, teams that won Games 1 and 2 of the semi-playoffs have advanced to the playoffs 77.9% of the time (seven out of nine). If KIA beats the LG Twins, who are on the brink of elimination, in Game 3 today, the series will end anticlimactically in a 3–0 sweep.
The problem is that if this scenario comes to pass, the ‘direct-to-the-playoffs advantage’ Samsung fought so hard to earn will vanish in an instant.
In a short series, the biggest weakness for a team advancing from an earlier round is a depleted pitching staff and accumulated fatigue. But if KIA ends the series today, everything changes completely. It would have a precious four days to regroup before Game 1 of the playoffs, which begins in Daegu on the 25th.
In that case, KIA’s powerful one-two punch, James Naile and Adam Oller, could take their usual rest, just as they did in the regular season, and start Games 1 and 2 in turn. The formidable bullpen of relievers—Kwak Do-gyu, Seong Young-tak, Cho Sang-woo and Jeon Sang-hyun—would also head to Daegu fully recharged. Samsung, which expects to face an exhausted opponent, could instead find itself up against ‘monsters’ whose momentum is soaring and whose energy is fully replenished.


What makes it even more painful is that KIA has been Samsung’s most relentless ‘nemesis’ this season. Samsung trailed KIA 7–9 in their regular-season matchups. The memories of their starting-pitcher matchups are almost nightmarish, too. Naile posted two wins and a 3.24 ERA in four games against Samsung, while Oller also went 3–1 in three games, shutting down the Lions’ lineup. By contrast, Samsung’s starters—including Pedek (two losses, 5.25 ERA), Won Tae-in (six runs allowed in one game) and Choi Won-tae (8.10 ERA)—were all hit hard by KIA’s lineup.
The presence of ‘superstar’ Kim Do-yeong, who hit 45 home runs this season to claim the home run title, is terrifying in itself. Kim hit no fewer than nine home runs in 16 games against Samsung this year, and showed off his peak batting form with back-to-back homers in Game 1 of this semi-playoff series.
Of course, that is only how Samsung, waiting in Daegu, sees things; the Tigers have a very different calculation.
Simply advancing to the next round is not enough. Even if KIA reaches the Korean Series by the skin of its teeth, battered and bloodied, beating reigning champion KT, which has conserved its strength, would be almost impossible. To make it all the way through the fall postseason, KIA must save every last bit of its pitching and energy along the way.
Today is the perfect opportunity to lay that ideal stepping stone.

Compared with LG, which is on the brink of elimination, KIA has an overwhelming psychological advantage with two wins in hand. If it closes out the series in Game 3 today, the payoff would be enormous. KIA could make the ‘second-place premium’ Samsung earned over 144 games evaporate in an instant, then launch an assault on Daegu in its most dangerous form.
KIA’s ambition to end the series early and swallow Samsung, too—and Samsung’s calculation that the matchup should drag on to a brutal Game 5, leaving both teams battered and broken.
The two teams’ conflicting dreams for control of the fall postseason are hanging in the air around Jamsil. For both the Lions, dreaming of a title for the first time in 11 years, and the Tigers, setting their sights even higher, tonight’s Game 3 is a fateful turning point they cannot afford to miss.
[email protected] Jeon Sang-il Reporter