Battle of American hurlers set for Korean Series opener
It’ll be a duel of two American pitchers at the start of the South Korean baseball championship series.
The Doosan Bears and the Kiwoom Heroes will clash in the best-of-seven Korean Series, with Game 1 scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Bears’ home, Jamsil Stadium in Seoul.
The Bears will send their No. 1 starter Josh Lindblom to the mound, as they pursue their first title since 2016.
The Heroes, seeking the franchise’s first championship, will counter with Eric Jokisch.
Lindblom went 20-3 with a 2.50 ERA, an MVP-worthy campaign in which he led the KBO in wins and strikeouts (189) and ranked second in ERA.
“He’s our ace, and there’s no explanation needed,” Doosan manager Kim Tae-hyung said Monday after announcing his starter during the pre-Korean Series media conference.
Lindblom had a 2-1 record with a 4.13 ERA in four regular season meetings against the Heroes.
This will be Lindblom’s second consecutive Game 1 assignment in the Korean Series. Last year, he faced the SK Wyverns in the series opener, but took the loss after giving up five runs in 6 1/3 innings. He bounced back with seven innings of one-run ball to win Game 4, but in a rare relief appearance, Lindblom gave up a game-tying solo home run to Choi Jeong with two outs and two strikes in the top of the ninth inning of Game 6. The Bears ended up losing the series in six games.
Jokisch was 2-2 with a 3.19 ERA in five regular season starts against the Bears, with 19 strikeouts and six walks in 31 innings.
Another American pitcher, righthander Jake Brigham, has put together 12 scoreless innings so far this postseason and would have been a reasonable choice as Game 1 starter. But Jang chose Jokisch because of the Bears’ season-long struggles against southpaws.
The Bears ranked last in the 10-team league in on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) against lefthanders with .668.
“I didn’t have to think too long and hard about this,” Jang said of his decision to tap Jokisch.
Jokisch, who was 13-9 with a 3.13 overall ERA in the regular season, has been mediocre in his two postseason starts so far. He served up seven hits and three earned runs in 2 1/3 innings against the Twins in the second game of the first round. Jokisch then held the Wyverns to a run over 4 2/3 innings in Game 2 of the second round, but he was yanked just one out away from qualifying for a win.
Managers take different road, eye same prize
Doosan Bears’ manager Kim Tae-hyung is preparing for his fifth consecutive Korean Series, but his counterpart, Jang Jung-suk of the Kiwoom Heroes, will be in his first Korean Series.
The differences don’t end there. Their teams took vastly different paths to the championship final in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). The Bears advanced directly to the Korean Series by virtue of winning the regular season title, while the Heroes, who finished third, have had to play two playoff rounds before reaching the Korean Series.
But Kim and Jang do have one thing in common: confidence that their team will be the one hoisting the trophy at the end.
“I’ve been here for five straight years now, and my mindset is the same,” Kim said at the pre-Korean Series media conference on Monday at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, the Bears’ home and the site of the first two games of the best-of-seven series. “We’re here to win the championship.”
The Bears caught the SK Wyverns for first place on the final day of the regular season on Oct. 1, and Kim said he hoped he’d be able to carry that momentum, despite the threeweek layoff before the start of the Korean Series.
Asked how much he celebrated the dramatic finish to the regular season, Kim said, “I enjoyed it just for that one day. After that, I started thinking about what we have to do to win the Korean Series.”
Kim, who won back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2016 but fell short in each of the past two Korean Series, spoke with a hint of the urgency of a man with something to prove.
Jang, on the other hand, exuded the “happy to be here” vibe on the podium, as he thanked his staff and players for coming this far into the postseason.
“We’ve been working toward the same goal of trying to reach the top, and we’ve arrived at the final hurdle,” Jang said. “There’s nothing that a manager alone can do. This has been a complete team effort to this point and we’ll try to keep it that way.”
The Heroes won the season series 9-7, the first time they held the regular season edge in Jang’s three years as the skipper.
“I just get the sense that we match up well against them and our players compete with confidence against them,” Jang said. “If we can continue that trend, we should be in for a competitive series.”
Last year, Jang’s Heroes came within a win of reaching the Korean Series, losing to the SK Wyverns, the eventual Korean Series winners, in extra innings in the deciding Game 5 of the second round.
This year, the Heroes swept the Wyverns in the second round.
“Throughout this season, I’ve been thinking to myself that I want to do something that I couldn’t do last year,” Jang said. “I’ve been trying to fill that void in my heart.”