The KIA Tigers, which could not guarantee autumn baseball until the beginning and middle of the season, boosted the team’s atmosphere based on their strong offense. Batteries who can hit a single shot at any time were deployed throughout the lineup, exhausting pitchers.
However, KIA is not only holding out with long-range power. One of the factors behind the rise is that most operations produce good results. “Operational baseball” showed its power at every decisive moment, including the timing of the pinch hitter. The LG Twins, who are leading the league, also spoke out about KIA’s strategy. 스포츠토토탑
KIA won three games in four games, including a double header, in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League home game held at Gwangju KIA Champions Field from the 8th to the 10th. Thanks to this, the team’s ranking has risen one notch from fifth to fourth, and the possibility of recapturing second place as well as third place is open.
KIA, which was completely defeated 2-12 on the first day of the series, launched a counterattack from the first game of the doubleheader the next day, and caught the game on the 10th following the second game of a doubleheader. During this period, KIA hit only three home runs. In fact, except for Choi Hyung-woo’s pinch-hit come-from-behind grand slam and Na Sung-bum’s wedge two-run home run that exploded in Game 2, he did not make a strong impression with the home run.
Rather, operations or active base play led to scores and wins. What stood out the most was the “catcher Ko Jong-wook” card, which set the stage for victory as Ko Jong-wook, who came out as a pinch hitter in the first and second games of the doubleheader, hit timely hits in both games.
In the game on the 10th, KIA kept running from the beginning of the game, confusing LG infielders. Starting with Kim Do-young’s stolen base in the bottom of the first inning, KIA recorded as many as eight steals on the day, breaking the team’s most stolen bases in a single game this season. Even if the team expands its scope to the history of the Tigers, it is tied for second place in history, including the time of Haitai.
The players and the head coach are also satisfied with the success of the operation. Choi Won-joon, who stole the base three times in the game on the 10th, said, “The players also know when the coach will launch the operation, so I think it fits well to prepare according to the situation, and the team atmosphere seems to revive a lot.”
KIA manager Kim Jong-kook, who has recently had a lot of fun with a pinch-hit card, smiled when asked by reporters that he seemed to have been on the head, saying, “The players did too well,” and gave credit to the players who perfectly carried out the operation.
However, manager Kim’s strategy is certainly having a positive impact on the team. Looking back to the full base with no outs in the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 2 of the doubleheader on the 9th, the pinch hitter card that KIA pulled out first was Ko Jong-wook at a time when it was being dragged 3-5 by LG. After Ko Jong-wook’s one-run timely hit, KIA immediately called Choi Hyung-woo, and as a result, it was more than expected to be a pinch hitter grand slam.
“I thought Ko Jong-wook was more likely to solve it first because he had more pinch-hit experience, and Choi Hyung-woo (the team) had less pinch-hit experience because he was the main player,” said head coach Kim Jong-kook, who was agonizing over two pinch-hit cards.
Even if only one of the head coach’s target numbers and the players’ ability to perform operations is off, good results cannot be expected, but KIA is currently steadily performing both. Moving as a “team,” not just because of power, is the driving force of the team.
