Lee Dae-ho's swan song will end without a playoff appearance for the Lotte Giants

Lee Dae-ho of the Lotte Giants prepares to bat during a game against the Samsung Lions at Daegu Samsung Lions Park in Daegu on Sept. 8. [YONHAP]

The Lotte Giants have failed to advance to the postseason for a fifth consecutive season, dropping out of the race on Monday and leaving veteran slugger Lee Dae-ho to retire without a shot at his Korean Series dreams.

The Giants lost 9-3 to the Doosan Bears at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan on Monday, mathematically eliminating themselves from the race for a playoff spot as they fall four games behind the fifth-place Kia Tigers, with only two games left to play for the Giants and five for the Tigers.

The game marked the Busan club’s penultimate home game performance of the 2022 season and therefore also the penultimate home game of Lee’s long and storied career.

Born on June 21, 1982, Lee turned 40 this year and he’s still swinging a bat hotter than the majority of players half his age. In what has proven to be a phenomenal swan song season, Lee is batting .335 with 178 hits, 100 RBIs and 23 home runs so far this season, having appeared in 140 games with two still left to go.

Exactly why Lee has been a power threat for two decades was on display against the Bears on Monday, when Lee batted in all three of the Giants’ runs, including with a two-run blast at the bottom of the fifth inning.

When Lee finally hangs up his bat at the end of a home game against the LG Twins on Saturday, he will be bowing out after 17 huge seasons in the KBO, all with the Giants, four seasons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball with the Orix Buffaloes and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and a year in the majors with the Seattle Mariners.

Lee’s name is written across Korean baseball history. As of press time Tuesday he sits in third place on the all-time KBO rankings for home runs, at 374, and RBIs, at 1,427, fifth for hits, at 2,198, and total bases, at 3,662, and 14th for career batting average, at .309. Lee achieved all of those numbers having spent five years of his career overseas, a feat unmatched by any of his peers.

Among his many career achievements, including multiple KBO batting titles, a half dozen Golden Gloves, two triple crowns, the 2010 KBO MVP award, a Nippon Professional Baseball RBI title and Japan Series MVP title, Lee also holds the world record for the most consecutive home runs, at nine.

But despite all that success, one thing that Lee has never had the chance to do is appear in the Korean Series.

The Giants have made it to the playoffs just six times in the last 20 years, in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2017.

In 2011 and 2012, the Giants made it to the second round of the playoffs, the round before the Korean Series, but were knocked out on both occasions. Lee was in the squad in 2011, but had moved on to play in Japan in 2012.

The 2017 return to the playoffs came as Lee returned to the team, but the Giants only made it to the first round before they were knocked out of contention by the NC Dinos. The Dinos have fallen well outside of contention since then.

Going into his final season, Lee had made it clear that he was hoping to get one last taste of the postseason, ideally with his first look at the Korean Series as well.

At the beginning that looked like a possibility, with the Giants taking second place early on, but the Busan club slowly slipped down the ranking to finish outside of the top five once again.

With a handful of games left to play, the seventh-place Samsung Lions and sixth-place Dinos can still challenge the Twins for fifth place.

For the Giants, the Bears and the Hanwha Eagles, the season is essentially already over.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]