It’s literally shaking. The KBO has flipped again. LG, SSG, and Lotte formed the top three at the start of the season, but now they’re in the middle of the pack. Meanwhile, KT and Hanwha, who were at the bottom of the standings, are making a 꽁머니 serious run. Kiwoom is also on the rise. On the contrary, NC’s recent five-game losing streak has actually made them part of a fierce top-five battle. Samsung, in particular, has fallen to the bottom of the standings, further widening the gap between them and the teams in the bottom half of the standings that have been performing well of late.
We’re nearly halfway through the KBO’s 144-game schedule, and it’s getting harder to predict who will make the top five this season. Teams that were in the mid-to-high tier at the beginning of the season are falling, while teams in the lower tier are rising.
2nd place: LG, SSG ‘6.5 games separates 2nd place SSG and 3rd place NC’
The second place is clear. LG Twins and SSG Landers. Barring a major upset, one of these two teams will likely win the pennant race this season. The two teams have been gaining ground on the mid-table teams as time goes on, and they’re both basically built to be solid, so they’re not going to fall easily.
LG reclaimed the top spot with a 14-0 thrashing of Incheon SSG on Nov. 27. LG is in first place with 44 wins, two draws, and 26 losses, while SSG is in second place with 43 wins, one draw, and 26 losses. Both teams are separated by just 0.5 games.
7th: NC, Lotte, Doosan, Kiwoom, KT, KIA, Hanwha ‘Fifth-place Doosan and ninth-place Hanwha have four games in hand’
The next seven teams are effectively in the middle of the pack. Second-place SSG and third-place NC Dinos have 6.5 games in hand. However, 3rd place NC and 9th place Hanwha Eagles are also separated by 6.5 games.
First, third-place NC (35W1D31L) has lost five straight games. The loss of foreign ace Pedi, who was on pace for 20 wins, due to a right forearm injury, has been painful. In addition, Koo Chang-mo has been diagnosed with a stress fracture in his elbow, and Choi Sung-young needs a rehabilitation period for a fractured orbital bone.
In fourth place is Lotte with 34 wins and 33 losses. With the team in disarray due to the sudden transfer of pitching coach Bae Young-soo to the second team, they pulled off a 5-3 upset win over Samsung Electronics on April 27. Lotte started the month of April on a high note, finishing the month in first place, but the team’s mood has dipped recently with a six-game losing streak.
In fifth place is Doosan. The fifth-place teams are 메이저토토 performing below the 5 percent win rate, with Doosan having 33 wins, one tie, and 34 losses (a winning percentage of 0.493). Still, the baseball world is praising manager Lee Seung-yeop for taking last year’s ninth-place team and turning it into a top-five team. NC and Lotte are separated by 1.5 games, while Lotte and Doosan are separated by just one game.
In sixth place is Kiwoom (34 wins, 2 ties, 37 losses) and in seventh place is KT (30 wins, 2 ties, 36 losses). Both teams have experience playing fall baseball last year (Kiwoom finished runner-up, KT finished fourth), so they’ve gotten stronger as the season has gone on. In their last 10 games, Kiwoom has won seven, drawn one and lost two, while KT has won seven and lost three. Only one game separates fifth-place Doosan from sixth-place Kiwoom, and only 1.5 games separate sixth-place Kiwoom from seventh-place KT.
KIA (29 wins, 1 draw, 35 losses, 0.453 winning percentage), which has been consistently in the top five since the start of the season, has faltered and is in eighth place. They have four wins, one draw, and five losses in their last 10 games. They are tied for eighth place with seventh-place KT, with no points.
Not far behind KIA is Hanwha in ninth place. However, Hanwha’s recent form has been uncharacteristic. On Sept. 27, Hanwha won 4-1 against KT in Daejeon, extending its winning streak to five games for the first time in nearly two years and nine months since Sept. 25, 2020. In their last 10 games, they have six wins, one draw, and three losses. The starting rotation of Peña, Sanchez, Moon Dong-ju, Han Seung-ju, and Han Seung-hyuk is stabilizing. Eighth-place KIA and ninth-place Hanwha are within 1.5 games of each other. They also have four games in hand on fifth-place Doosan. Hanwha is now within striking distance of a top-five finish.
1: Samsung has 3 games in hand on 9th-place Hanwha
Samsung, on the other hand, is in last place with 27 wins and 42 losses. For now, they’re the underdog. Their last 10 games are 2-8. The team as a whole is facing a difficult situation, with top batsman Koo Ja-rook out of the lineup with a hamstring injury, and Oh Seung-hwan, who was angry after the game, being sent to the second team. The team is also three games behind ninth-place Hanwha.
The KBO currently has the lowest number of games played (65) and the highest number of games played (73). Last year, when the league played 67-70 games (June 23, 2022), the five teams that made up the top five (SSG, Kiwoom, LG, KIA, KT) all ended up playing fall baseball. What about this season? With the Asian Games looming after the All-Star break, the KBO will continue to be a volatile league.