Samsung Lions beat LG Twins to advance to 2024 Korean Series

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Samsung Lions beat LG Twins to advance to 2024 Korean Series

Published: 20 Oct. 2024, 13:10 Updated: 20 Oct. 2024, 16:12

JIM BULLEY
jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr

Samsung Lions catcher Kang Min-ho celebrates after hitting a one-run home run at the top eighth during the fourth game of the second round of KBO playoffs against the LG Twins at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in southern Seoul on Saturday. [NEWS1]

The Samsung Lions beat the defending champion LG Twins 1-0 at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in southern Seoul on Saturday, winning the second round of KBO playoffs to secure the final ticket to the 2024 Korean Series.

The Lions edged out the Twins in a pitchers dual Saturday to knock out the 2023 champions, winning the best-of-five series in four games.

Veteran catcher Kang Min-ho provided the only fireworks of the game, blasting a solo homer over the wall at the top of the eighth, breaking the deadlock to secure the Lions the win.

Lions starter Denyi Reyes took the win with seven shutout innings pitched. The Twins’ Dietrich Enns was equally dominating, allowing no hits through the first four innings of work. LG reliever Son Ju-young eventually gave up the game-deciding run.

With the series victory, the Daegu-based Landers advance to take on the Gwangju-based Kia Tigers, who earned their spot in the championship series by winning the KBO pennant a month earlier.

The LG Twins leave the field after losing the second round of KBO playoffs to the Samsung Lions at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in southern Seoul on Saturday. [YONHAP]

This year’s Korean Series marks the first that the championship has been played entirely out of Seoul since 2012, when the Lions beat the SK Wyverns, now the SSG Landers, and the first time outside of the greater Seoul area (which includes Incheon and Gyeonggi) since 2006, when the Lions beat the Hanwha Eagles.

It also means that the KBO crown is guaranteed to go to a different team for an eighth consecutive season, with the last back-to-back titles secured by the Doosan Bears from 2015-2016.

Although neither team has been particularly dominant in recent years, the match-up between the Tigers and Lions in the Korean Series brings together two of Korea’s biggest baseball dynasties for their first championship fight in 31 years.

The Tigers are the most successful team in Korean Series history, winning the title 11 times in 11 appearances — meaning that 1993 series was a win for the Gwangju club. Nearly all of those titles were in the 1980s and ‘90s, with only two since the turn of the century: 2009 and 2017.

The Samsung Lions are the second most successful team in Korean Series history, with seven titles, but have made it to the series a huge 17 times. That number, the highest in the league, means the Lions have lost more than they won.

All seven of the Lions’ titles came after 2000, with the Daegu team dominating much of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Samsung also won the league in 1985, but no Korean Series was held that year, so they took the championship title too.

The Lions will get just a single day to rest before its back to work this week, with the Korean Series kicking off on Monday at Gwangju Kia Champions Field in Gwangju.

A game will also be played in Gwangju on Tuesday, before the series heads northeast to resume at Daegu Samsung Lions Park on Thursday. Another game in Daegu will follow on Friday and then, if needed, the series will return to Gwangju for the final three games from the following Sunday.

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