Korean baseball team LG swept a midweek three-game series against Samsung to regain the lead in the standings after 14 days.
LG used a focused, seven-run sixth inning to defeat Samsung 9-3 in a home game of the 2023 KBO League on Friday at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul. With the sweep of the three-game series against Samsung and a four-game winning streak to improve its record to 37-2, LG moved to within half a game of SSG (36-1, 23-2), which lost 3-8 to KT earlier in the day, for the first time in 14 days.
Most importantly, LG was pleased to see the return of top outfielder Kim Hyun-soo (35-photo), who activated the home run gun for the first time in 64 days since April 12 against Lotte. Trailing 0-3 in the top of the fourth inning, Kim lifted a high 스포츠토토 forked ball from Hwang Dong-jae over the right field fence. After batting .400 through April, Kim suffered a severe slump in May, batting .148 (12-for-91). After showing signs of life in the middle of the month, Kim showed that his bat is back to full strength with three hits and two RBIs, including a home run.
Aside from Kim Hyun-soo’s home run, the LG batting lineup, which had been silent in the face of Samsung’s fourth-year rookie starter Hwang Dong-jae, exploded in the sixth inning when Hwang went down to the mound. After Kim Hyun-soo led off with a single to left-center from reliever Hong Jung-woo, Austin blasted a two-run shot to tie the game. The team then capitalized on six hits and a pair of errors to score five runs and take a commanding 8-3 lead.
Samsung’s early removal of Hwang Dong-jae, who threw only 67 pitches until the fifth inning, proved costly. It was also unfortunate that the new pitcher was Hong Jung-woo, who was not a must-win pitcher but a chaser. Only after Hong Jeong-woo and Woo Kyu-min gave up a 5-3 lead did they bring up right-hander Lee Seung-hyun. The team dropped all three games of the midweek series with a pitching staff that didn’t make sense in many ways.
NC swept Dusan 10-3 in Changwon, while KIA defeated Kiwoom 8-4 at the Gocheok Dome.