The Lotte Giants are still holding on to the competition for the semifinals. Now, the ranking, which has not risen in nearly half since the opening game, is approaching.
Lotte won 10-2 in the away game of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League regular season against SSG Landers at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on the 11th.
After winning two consecutive games to post 59 wins, 66 losses and four draws (winning rate of 0.472), Lotte has defeated the Hanwha Eagles who have lost four consecutive games to eighth place and is back in seventh place. On top of that, Lotte has narrowed its gap versus the fifth-ranked Doosan Bears to three games, which had no game on the day. With 15 games left in the season, Lotte can hope to regain its fifth place.
Lotte Giants put right-hander Park Jin as its starting pitcher on the day. He played in 35 games this year before the game, but it was his first time as a starting pitcher. On the other hand, SSG had 10 consecutive wins against Lotte until last year, and veteran Kim Kwang-hyun, who had three wins (one loss) this year, joined the team.
Park, however, allowed no runs in all innings without allowing a runner. Jung Joon-jae’s hit and Guillermo Herredia’s walk made him to first and second bases with no outs in the bottom of the first inning, but he overcame the crisis by striking out two fly balls and two strikeouts. In the second inning, Lee Ji-young gave a hit after one out, but both hitters swung and missed to strike out, and in the third inning, he induced Choi Jeong, a tricky hitter, to hit a double play. 안전놀이터
In the meantime, Lotte’s batters also gave strength to Kim Kwang-hyun. With the bases loaded with one outs in the top of the second inning, Park Seung-wook hit a ground ball to the second base to score the first run. In the next inning, he went 5-0 with Son Ho-young’s timely hit, Victor Reyes’ sacrifice fly, and Jeon Jun-woo’s two-run homerun.
Without stopping here, Lotte scored one point each with Park Seung-wook’s solo shot in the fourth inning and Na Seung-yeop’s sacrifice fly in the fifth inning, and Kim Kwang-hyun eventually collapsed with six hits, one out, four strikeouts, and six runs in four innings.
After Park Jin-young pitched better than expected, Lotte took the mound with Na Kyun-an (56 pitches) as the number of pitches approached 60 in the fourth inning. On the day, he displayed fast balls up to 147 kilometers per hour and folk balls to keep the SSG batters scoreless in one ⅓. Considering that he started the game between the late 130 kilometers per hour and early 140 kilometers per hour, his pitches have improved remarkably.
Since then, Lotte has continued to dominate, and Yoon Dong-hee’s two-run double in the top of the ninth inning sealed the victory. SSG chased Choi Jung in the bottom of the seventh inning with his 35th solo home run of the season, but it was not enough.
In the remaining games, Lotte has to record 11 wins and 4 losses to achieve its 50% win rate, which is considered to be the advancement line for the postseason. It is better than Hanwha (11 wins and 3 losses), which is also in the same competition, but is in a more difficult situation than Doosan (6 wins and 5 losses), which is already ranked fifth.
Given Lotte’s performance this season, however, the team remains promising. Lotte started its opening four consecutive seasons and ranked at the bottom with eight wins, 21 losses and one draw (winning rate of 0.276) through April. However, it succeeded in turning the tables by ranking first overall with a winning rate of 0.609 in June. It was a bit sluggish with six wins and 14 losses (0.300) in July, but rebounded with 14 wins and eight losses (0.636) in August. It has hope in that it has achieved a monthly winning rate of 60 percent twice.
On top of that, if the team wins an away game against the KIA Tigers on the 12th, it will be 0.0007 in winning percentage without a gap against the sixth-ranked SSG. Lotte has never been ranked higher than 6th since it started tied for 6th due to the loss in the opening game (March 23). It was not easy to even rank 7th amid ups and downs, but it has come this far in about six months amid the ups and downs.