Heroes ride 7-game winning streak to third as Dinos climb to top of KBO table

Baseball

Published: 08 Apr. 2024, 11:23 Updated: 08 Apr. 2024, 11:23

Heroes ride 7-game winning streak to third as Dinos climb to top of KBO table

The Kiwoom Heroes celebrate after Kim Hye-seong hit a walk-off home run at the bottom of the 11th in a KBO game against the Hanwha Eagles at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul on Sunday. Kim went deep twice in the 4-3 win. [YONHAP]

The Kiwoom Heroes rode a seven-game winning streak into the top three last week as the NC Dinos seized first over a particularly high-scoring weekend of KBO action and the Hanwha Eagles tumbled down to fourth.

The Heroes swept the Eagles over the weekend — 11-7, 7-6, 4-3 — capping off a big run for the Seoul club that has lifted them from seventh to third in the space of the week with a walk-off, extra-innings win on Sunday.

Ryu Hyun-jin was the starting pitcher for the Eagles on Friday, picking up the second loss since his return to the KBO with nine runs allowed on nine hits with two walks and two strikeouts. That leaves Ryu with a big 8.36 ERA after three appearances and the Eagles tumbling from first down to fourth place on the table.

The Heroes have moved in the other direction.

After finishing opening weekend in last place, the Heroes’ fortunes changed against the reigning champion LG Twins a week ago, winning 8-3, 8-4 over the weekend to kick off the winning streak. Kiwoom then beat the Samsung Lions 8-3, 10-1, in some midweek action with Wednesday’s game canceled due to rain.

That run saw the Heroes move from 10th to seventh to third over the last two weeks, now sitting just one game shy of the Dinos in first place. With the winning streak still alive and the struggling SSG Landers lined up for a midweek series this week, the Heroes could look to push even further up the table.

Hanwha Eagles starter Ryu Hyun-jin reacts after a run is scored in the fifth inning of a game between the Eagles and Kiwoom Heroes at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]

But while the Heroes showed the most improvement, it was the Dinos that rose to the top of the pack over the weekend with a high-scoring win over the Landers: 5-0, 16-3, 10-1. That sweep was enough to lift the Dinos into first place despite a midweek loss to the Twins: 7-5, 0-5, 7-8.

The Twins, now tied with the Eagles in fourth place on the table, also enjoyed a high-scoring weekend as they hosted the last-place KT Wiz at home in southern Seoul, losing the opening game 8-7 but coming back to win 8-4, 16-7 to take the series.

Those two series made for a particularly high-scoring weekend in the KBO: Both the Dinos and Twins batted in 31 runs over the weekend action. No other club broke 20 runs, although every team apart from the Landers did manager to bat in over 10 runs over the weekend. The Landers scored just four runs in their loss to the Dinos.

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Elsewhere in the league the third-place Kia Tigers beat the Wiz, losing 10-6 in the opening game on Tuesday and winning 5-1, 6-3 on Wednesday and Thursday to take the series, before going on to be edged out by the Lions over the weekend: 5-2, 4-7, 3-7.

The Landers held on to sixth place despite the rough weekend, sweeping the seventh-place Doosan Bears during the week: 13-6, 5-3, 3-2.

The Bears went on to lose their weekend series as well — 4-3, 1-8, 6-7 — to the eighth-place Lotte Giants, who had split their midweek series with the Hanwha Eagles with a game apiece and a rain cancelation on the Wednesday.

Moving into this week, the Dinos will host the Wiz in Changwon, South Gyeongsang from Tuesday as the Twins travel to Gwangju to face the Tigers and the Heroes visit the Landers in Incheon. The Bears will host the Eagles at Jamsil in southern Seoul, while the Lions and Giants play in Busan.

The weekend brings the first Jamsil derby of the 2024 season, the Bears playing host to the Twins in a subway series so acute that neither team actually has to ride the subway. The Dinos will head to Daegu to play the Lions, the Heroes host the Giants in western Seoul, the Tigers face the Eagles in Daejeon and the Landers travel to Suwon, Gyeonggi to take on the Wiz.

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