‘Is it the first 5th place deciding game’ final game victory

The fifth place in the 2024 regular season will be decided by a tiebreaker. KT secured sole possession of fifth place with a win in the season finale, but will still miss out on fall baseball.

The KT Wiz of the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) pulled off a 10-6 come-from-behind victory over the Kiwoom Heroes of the Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League 2024 in the season finale at KT Wiz Park in Suwon, South Korea, on April 28.

The fifth-ranked KT finished the 2024 season with 72 wins, two draws and 70 losses. This year, the team dominated the series with a 14-2 record.

Starter Wes Benjamin was pulled early after allowing six runs (four earned) on five hits (one homer) with four walks and six strikeouts in 3 1/3 innings on 85 pitches, but Joo Kwon (⅓ innings of scoreless relief), Ko Young-pyo (five innings of one run), and Park Young-hyun (⅓ innings of scoreless relief) held strong.

Ko Young-pyo pitched out of the bullpen for the first time in 545 days since April 2, 2023, against the Suwon LG Twins and the first time in 2,965 days since August 16, 2016, against the Gwangju KIA Tigers. He limited his team to just 48 hits in five innings of relief.

At the plate,

Kim Min-hyuk went 5-for-3 with a home run, one RBI and one run scored, Kang Baek-ho went 5-for-3 with a home run, one RBI and three runs scored, and Oh Jae-il went 4-for-3 with a home run, two RBI and one run scored. Mel Rojas Jr. was 2-for-5 with a double, 메이저사이트 one RBI, and one run scored, and Bae Jae-dae was 2-for-4 with a double and three RBI in support.

“I’m glad we were able to reward our fans with a win in our final home game of the season,” said KT head coach Lee Kang-cheol after the game. ”Young-pyo Ko pitched really well to set the stage for the win, and in a situation where we could have fallen behind early, all of our players came through with big innings to set the tone for the game. We were able to capitalize on our scoring chances and get the extra base hits to win the game,” said Kim.

With the 12th sellout of the season,

KT recorded a total attendance of 843,942 fans, surpassing the 800,000 single-season attendance mark for the first time in its history. The previous single-season record was 693,750 last year. KT broke the previous record with a cumulative attendance of 697,745 against the Doosan Bears on March 7.

“We would like to thank our fans once again for their enthusiastic support by filling the stadium to capacity for our last home game of the season,” Lee said.

KT maintained a 0.5-game lead over sixth-place SSG Landers, who beat the Hanwha Eagles in Daejeon at the same time, but unlike KT, which ended its season, SSG still has one more game left.

If SSG wins against the Incheon Kiwoom Heroes on October 30, it will set up the KBO League’s first-ever fifth-place matchup between KT and SSG on October 1 in Suwon, while the reverse will see KT board the postseason train in fifth place. The fate of both KT and SSG hangs in the balance on October 30th.