The Kia Tigers roared to a fifth straight victory, sending the Hanwha Eagles to their sixth straight loss.
The Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) leader Kia defeated Hanwha 8-4 on Tuesday at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon, South Korea, in the visiting 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League.
Kia, which has been gaining ground on the second-place team since the start of the second half, is four games away from reaching 60 wins.
Ninth-place Hanwha, which has lost six games, slipped further out of the middle of the pack.
Kia struck first with two runs in the first inning, capitalizing on a leadoff double by Na Sung-beom and an error by Hanwha right fielder Kim Tae-yeon.
In the third inning, with the score 2-1, Choi Won-joon hit a solo shot to right and Kim Do-young followed with a solo shot to left-center.
Socrates Brito, who has recently regained his hitting touch as the No. 1 hitter, hit a solo shot to right to make it 5-1 in the fourth.
Kia drove in a run in the top of the fifth inning with Kim Tae-gun’s RBI double to left center.
Hanwha had runners on base in every inning except the sixth, when three batters struck out in a row, but was held in check by KIA starter James Nail, scoring only one run on Kim Tae-yeon’s solo home run to left.
The three runs Hanhwa scored in the bottom of the ninth inning, when the game was already in hand, had no bearing on the outcome.
Nail pitched six innings of one-run ball to pick up his ninth win of the season (2-2).
The Samsung Lions pounded out 22 hits, including four home runs, in a 21-4 blowout of the Lotte Giants at home in Daegu to snap a three-game losing streak.
With runners on first and second, Kang Min-ho blasted a three-run homer to left-center, becoming just the fifth player in history to hit double-digit home runs in 15 consecutive years.
Samsung scored three more runs in the fourth inning, including a solo shot by Lee Sung-gyu to make it 6-4, and then capitalized on a Lotte error to score four runs in the fifth inning to effectively seal the game.
Samsung added four runs in the sixth and four more in the eighth to complete the sweep, as new foreign-born slugger Ruben Cardenas hit a 140-meter cannon that cleared the left-field stands in just his second KBO game, and Kim Young-woong backed it up with a two-run shot to left-center field.
The Doosan Bears-LG Twins (Jamsil Stadium, Seoul), NC Dinos-KT Wiz (Suwon Katwiz Park), and Kiwoom Heroes-SSG Landers (SSG Landers Field, Incheon) all started on time but were canceled due to heavy rain.
In particular, the Jamsil game was canceled in the top of the third inning when LG took a 6-0 lead, but was about to resume after 1 hour and 39 minutes when the rain poured again.
Kelly, who served as LG’s ace for six years and won 73 games in his career, pitched 2⅔ scoreless innings in his farewell appearance in the KBO before the rain washed away his final victory.
LG announced that it has signed right-hander Eliezer Hernandez (29, Venezuela) to replace Kelly. 온라인카지노사이트