With a total of 720 games and 144 games per team, the 2023 professional baseball season begins this week with a full slate of reserve games.
The residual season is characterized by its irregularity, as each year’s schedule is made up of games that have been canceled due to rain or fine dust. Each team has played a different number of games, so the remaining schedule is naturally jagged.먹튀검증
As of the 11th, the Kiwoom Heroes have played the most games, 131 out of 144, with only 13 games left. The KIA Tigers, who have played the least amount of games (114), still have 30 more games to finish the regular season.
Looking at the remaining games for each team, 1st place LG Twins has 25 games, 2nd place KT Wiz has 23 games, 3rd place NC Dinos has 27 games, 4th place KIA has 30 games, 5th place SSG Landers has 26 games, 6th place Doosan Bears has 27 games, 7th place Lotte Giants has 26 games, 8th place Hanwha Eagles has 26 games, 9th place Samsung Lions has 23 games, and 10th place Kiwoom has 13 games left.
This week, professional baseball opens with Hanwha-Dusan (Jamsil), kt-SSG (Incheon), KIA-Samsung (Daegu), and NC-Lotte (Busan) on the 12th.
On the 13th, SSG-Dusan (Jamsil), Lotte-KIA (Gwangju), and kt-NC (Changwon) will play three games, and on the 14th, SSG-Dusan (Jamsil), kt-Samsung (Daegu), Lotte-KIA (Gwangju), and LG-NC (Changwon) will play four games.
LG-Hanwha (Daejeon), Doosan-KIA (Gwangju), Kiwoom-Lotte (Busan), and Samsung-NC (Changwon) will follow on the 15th, while SSG-LG (Jamsil), kt-Hanwha (Daejeon), Doosan-KIA (Gwangju), Kiwoom-Lotte (Busan), and Samsung-NC (Changwon) will take place on the 16th.
On Sunday, the 17th, SSG-LG doubleheader (Jamsil), kt-Hanwha doubleheader (Daejeon), and Lotte-Samsung (Daegu) will follow.
After a nine-game winning streak ended with two straight losses and a three-game sweep of leader LG, KIA will play the Samsung Lions in Daegu on the 12th before traveling to Gwangju for a five-game series against the Lotte Giants and Doosan Bears. It’s a grueling schedule that won’t allow them to take a day off.
With a strong batting lineup, KIA will face a tough schedule this week that will determine the fall baseball bracket.
Kia’s bats have been on fire since August 24, when they began their winning streak, leading the team in batting average (0.332), runs scored (107), and on-base percentage (0.483).
Doosan, who must knock off one of the teams in the second place group to enjoy the fall, is fighting with the mentality of ‘every game is a final’.
The two-game series between SSG and Doosan (Sept. 13-14), the three-game series between SSG and LG (Sept. 16-17), and the three-game series between Doosan and KIA (Sept. 15-17) are considered crucial to define the top spot.
Doosan, which trails fifth-place SSG by three games, will need two straight wins on Dec. 13-14 to travel to Gwangju with a light heart. SSG, too, is in trouble if they lose back-to-back games, so they’re going for a half-hearted strategy to at least maintain their current lead over Doosan.
Leaders LG Twins have been handed a tricky schedule, traveling to Changwon (NC Dinos) on the 14th, Daejeon (Hanwha Eagles) on the 15th, Jamsil Stadium in Seoul (SSG Landers) on the 16th, and even a doubleheader with SSG on the 17th.
Second-place KT WIZ’s schedule is no easier, with trips to Incheon (SSG), Changwon (NC), and Daejeon (Hanwha).
With the Korean National Baseball Team competing in the Hangzhou Asian Games after the 22nd game, their performance in the next ten days will determine the fate of the fall baseball competitors.
How the six top teams – LG, KT, NC, KIA, SSG, and Doosan – position themselves in the standings will be key to watching.
LG, which is 5.5 games ahead of the second-place group, needs to widen the gap to reach the Korean Series for the first time in 21 years, while kt, NC, KIA, and SSG, which are all within two games of each other, need to rack up more wins to join the fall season in a higher position.
Last-place Kiwoom, who call the all-weather Gochuk-dome home, will have a day off from Dec. 12-14 before wrapping up the weekly schedule with a two-game series against Lotte in Busan on Dec. 15-16.