Could this be the year that the LG Twins finally make it work?

Austin Dean of the LG Twins rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run against the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in southern Seoul on July 28. [NEWS1]

As the KBO enters its final third, the LG Twins are on the edge of achieving something they haven’t managed since before many of their fans were even born — the KBO pennant.

The Twins have looked comfortable in first place since June 27, easily outpacing the second-place SSG Landers who they had been locked in a battle for the top spot with for at least a month before taking control.

With that run at the top spot now lasting for more than six weeks, the idea is slowly starting to take hold in eastern Seoul that just maybe this could be the season when the Twins finally break a 29-year dry spell.

The Twins are one of the five remaining teams that founded the KBO back in 1982, although at the time they were owned by broadcaster MBC and played as the MBC Chungryong.

Alongside the OB Bears, now the Doosan Bears, the Haitai Tigers, now the Kia Tigers, the Lotte Giants, the Samsung Lions and the now-defunct Sammi Superstars, the Twins were there from the very birth of the KBO — although they finished third in that opening season.

Over the years, the Twins have seen little success when it comes to silverware.

Although they saw some results when the KBO played with different formats — in 1983 they won the second half split and in 2000 they topped the Magic League, one of two four-team leagues at the time — the Twins have only actually topped a full-length, all-team KBO table twice, in 1990 and 1994.

On both occasions, the Twins went on to win the Korean Series title as well, adding the championship to the pennant for the only four major trophies the club has ever won.

Since 1994, the club has increasingly found itself playing second fiddle to the Bears, a rival that Twins fans still see as a usurper to the Seoul baseball crown.

While the Twins were founded in Seoul in 1982, the Bears started their life down in Daejeon, moving to the capital in 1985 and eventually joining the Twins at Jamsil Baseball Stadium a year later in 1986, the two teams sharing a home ever since.

The Kiwoom Heroes, the third Seoul team, was not founded until 2008, leaving the Twins as the original Seoul club — even if a lot of people that aren’t LG fans have already forgotten the fact.

But despite LG’s pedigree, it was the Bears that shone. Since that 1994 Twins pennant, the Bears have topped the table four times and taken the Korean Series title five times, missing out on the playoffs just three times between 2004 and 2021.

This year things have finally shifted in the Twins’ favor. In 10 games between the two Jamsil clubs so far this year, the Twins have won eight and lost just two, shifting the winning momentum firmly in their direction for the second consecutive season after going 10-and-six last year.

But while beating the Bears is always a reason for the Twins to celebrate, there are eight other teams that still need to be dealt with to claim the title. As of press time Friday, the Twins have little cause for concern — not a single team has come out on top against the Twins overall this season, with the KT Wiz coming closest with an even five-five record.

With a third of the season still to play and some teams — and especially the Bears — favoring fall baseball, there is still plenty of time for things to go wrong for the original Seoul club. But with a dominant performance over the opening 90 games already under their belt, maybe it really is time for people to start getting excited in eastern Seoul.

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