Old KBO rivals to duel for ticket to championship series

By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Yonhap) -- Two clubs with a long history of heated rivalry will battle for a spot in the South Korean baseball championship series starting this weekend.

The Samsung Lions and the Kia Tigers will square off in the best-of-five second round in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason. The opening game is 2 p.m. Sunday at Daegu Samsung Lions Park in the southeastern city of Daegu. The second game will also be in Daegu at 6:30 p.m. Monday.

The series will then shift to the Tigers' home in the southwestern city of Gwangju, with Game 3 at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field. If necessary, Game 4 is 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Gwangju.

Should the teams need a Game 5 to decide the winner, the final game will be in Daegu at 2 p.m. Oct. 31.

The winner of this showdown will advance to the Korean Series, where the KT Wiz, the regular-season champions, are waiting.

The Lions, by finishing in second place in the regular season, earned a bye to this series. The Tigers, who finished third, swept the 2025 Korean Series champions LG Twins in the previous round to get to this stage.

The Lions and the Tigers have met in five previous postseason series, most recently in the 2024 Korean Series. The Tigers knocked off the Lions in five games then.

The Tigers won the season series this year by winning nine of their 16 meetings, including four wins in seven visits to Daegu.

While both teams boast strong starting pitching, this series will likely be defined by the offense.

Only five players hit 30 or more home runs in the regular season, and two of them play for the Tigers -- Kim Do-yeong, who led everyone with 45 homers, and Na Sung-bum, who smacked 31 homers.

The Lions were the only team this year to have three 100-RBI men -- Lewin Diaz with 129, Choi Hyoung-woo with 106 and Koo Ja-wook with 102.

Both clubs have pesky, contact-first hitters atop their lineups -- Kim Ji-chan and Kim Seong-yoon for the Lions, and Park Jung-woo and Park Jae-hyun for the Tigers. They will try to set the table for their clubs and let the mashers behind them do damage.

One of those sluggers, Kim Do-yeong, dominated the series against the Twins. He had three hits in three games, but all three of them were home runs, including a grand slam in the clinching Game 3.

Kim homered nine times off the Lions in the regular season, tied for the most against any opponent, and four of those dingers came at Daegu Samsung Lions Park, considered a hitter-friendly stadium thanks to its short dimensions.

For the Lions, Koo, the regular-season batting champion with a .374 mark, hit .340 with five doubles in 15 games against the Tigers.

The Lions pitchers will face the "rest vs. rust" question. Their last regular-season game was Oct. 12. The Tigers pitchers, on the other hand, will go into this series on the heels of a four-day break, with three starters, James Naile, Adam Oller and Keisho Shirakawa, each throwing at least five innings and with nine relievers having taken the mound.

The Lions' rotation will be led by Ariel Jurado, Chris Paddack and Won Tae-in. Though no Lions starter reached double figures in wins in the regular season, both Jurado and Won are proven workhorses, and Paddack, who joined the Lions in July, brings some big league pedigree.

jeeho@yna.co.kr
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