The Korean team has lost momentum to boost its hopes for the fall baseball season. The Lotte Giants failed to narrow their distance from the fifth place with their second consecutive losing series.
Lotte lost 5-10 in an away game against the Samsung Lions of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League at Samsung Lions Park in Daegu on Saturday. On the same day, fifth-ranked KT Wiz (59 wins, 2 draws and 61 losses, 0.492) lost, but eighth-ranked Lotte (51 wins, 3 losses, 61 losses, 0.455) also remained in the same position, maintaining the gap of four games. The gap has widened to three games with seventh-ranked Hanwha Eagles (56 wins, 2 draws and 60 losses, 0.483) who have won three consecutive games.
Lotte had a difficult game on the day when its starting pitcher Kim Jin-wook (four hits, one homer, seven strikeouts, five strikeouts and seven runs in three ⅔ innings) collapsed early on. Kim Jin-wook, who caused the bases-loaded jam with three outs in the bottom of the first inning, threw a slider at the third pitch to Park Byung-ho, allowing him to hit a grand slam.안전놀이터
Kim Jin-wook also had runners on first and second bases with two outs in the second inning, before giving up one run on Koo Ja-wook’s timely hit. He then managed to secure two outs, but allowed a two-run double with two outs and runners on the first and third bases, widening the score to 0-7.
Lotte’s batters, who had been tied scoreless by Samsung’s starting pitcher Won Tae-in until the fourth inning, started fighting back with Yoon Dong-hee’s solo shot in the top of the fifth inning. After Noh Jin-hyuk’s hit, Son Seong-bin made a two-run shot, narrowing the score to 3-7. After Hwang grounded out, Ko Seung-min rekindled the game with a double, and Son Ho-young hit a two-run homer to chase the two-run gap (5-7).
Lotte, which had been gaining momentum, allowed a big inning due to an error in the bottom of the sixth inning. After a game of up to eight pitches, Kim Kang-hyun induced Lee Jae-hyun to hit a ground ball. However, Noh Jin-hyuk failed to catch an ordinary hit, and allowed the leadoff hitter to get on base due to an error.
The cost of Lotte’s failure to catch the outcount that it needed to catch was huge. Lotte lowered Kim Kang-hyun and deployed Song Jae-young, but was hit by a double by Koo Ja-wook, putting him on the verge of being runners on the second and third bases with no outs. Eventually, Song was caught on the ball count, which was 3-1 against Lewin Diaz, and his slider at the fifth pitch flocked to the center, giving him a three-run homer. Lotte’s pursuit mood was subdued as the crisis that started with a mistake continued to lead to fatal three runs.
Due to hits by Jeon Joon-woo and Yoon Dong-hee in the top of the eighth inning, Lotte had a chance to score a point with two outs and runners on the first and second bases. However, Noh Jin-hyuk, who made a mistake in the sixth inning, failed to make up for his defense mistake at bat and hit a grounder to the pitcher with an ambiguous swing, and was out in vain. Lotte, which finished its last attack with three batters in the top of the ninth inning, lost 5-10, confirming its second consecutive losing series.
Lotte, which had been on the rise by 9 wins and 3 losses (0.750 winning percentage) in 12 games until August 18, lost both games on the 21st and 22nd with Park Se-woong and Charlie Barnes (game rain cancellation on the 20th). Lotte, which lost 3-5 despite Aaron Wilkerson’s seven innings of three-run effort on the 23rd, the first game of the weekend’s three consecutive games, won 11-3 and succeeded in escaping its losing streak.
Back-to-back wins were necessary to change the mood, but the game on Saturday was dragged from the beginning due to the starting pitcher’s poor control. The batters seemed to be focusing on the opponent team’s ace pitchers and creating an atmosphere of upset. However, he had to suffer a bitter taste of defeat as he was hampered by chronic “faulty” issues that burst out at important moments.