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August 2024
The KT Wiz's magical journey of forgetting the losing streak for nearly 50 days has come to a halt
POSTED ON
08/02/24
The KT Wiz's magical journey of forgetting the losing streak for nearly 50 days has come to a halt. They suffered a shocking sweep defeat against the Hanwha Eagles, who had fallen to 9th place after losing their trusted ace, homegrown ace, and FA's biggest fish in a row.
The professional baseball KT Wiz lost 8-14 in the 15th game of the season against the Hanwha Eagles of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League held at Suwon KT Wiz Park on the first day of August, falling into a 3-game losing streak.
The slump of starting pitcher Eom Sang-baek, who had been raising his stock as the preliminary FA season began, was painful. There were high expectations that he would stop the losing streak as his ERA had risen to 1.77 in the last 3 games, but he suffered his 8th loss (9 wins) of the season with his worst pitching of 5 innings, 11 hits (2 home runs), 2 walks, 3 strikeouts, and 10 runs. The 10 runs were the most runs allowed in a single game by Eom Sang-baek, surpassing the 9 runs allowed in the Daejeon Hanwha game on May 20, 2016.
Eom Sang-baek allowed a 3-run home run to Chae Eun-seong and a 1-RBI double to Ha Ju-seok in the top of the first inning, giving up 4 runs. In the top of the third inning, he allowed another 2-run home run to Chae Eun-seong, and in the top of the fourth inning, with 3 consecutive hits and no outs and bases loaded, he allowed 4 more runs on Kim Tae-yeon's push-out walk, 토토사이트 순위 Noh Si-hwan's 2-RBI single, and Ahn Chi-hong's sacrifice fly. After that, he got Kim In-hwan to fly out to left field with 2 outs and a runner on first base in the top of the fifth inning, but he had already given up 10 runs.
KT's batting lineup, led by Kang Baek-ho with 4 hits, 1 home run, and 2 RBIs in 4 at-bats, as well as Mel Rojas Jr., Shin Bon-gi, Moon Sang-cheol, and Cho Yong-ho, came out in hot pursuit. They put pressure on Hanwha by scoring 3 consecutive innings from the bottom of the 5th to the bottom of the 7th, and then scoring 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th. However, Seong Jae-heon and Lee Sang-****, who were in the pursuit group, failed to carry out their mission in the second half, and eventually suffered a complete defeat by 6 runs.
Ahead of the 3-game series against Hanwha, KT took the top spot in the second half of the season and moved up to a tie for 4th place, just 1.5 games behind the 3rd place Samsung Lions. It was a huge upset for a team that had been hovering around 9th place until the end of June. They forgot their losing streak after the game against Suwon KIA Tigers on June 16, and they caused a real change in the KBO League's top 5 by winning 6 and 5 games in a row. Here, the next opponent was Hanwha, which was in 9th place as of July 29.
However, the three starting pitchers that they trusted failed to block the Eagles' rising batting lineup. On the first day, William Cuevas collapsed in 6 innings, allowing 8 hits, 2 walks, 1 strikeout, and 6 runs, and even the '10.7 billion won ace' Ko Young-pyo bowed his head the next day, allowing 11 hits (2 home runs), 1 walk, 4 strikeouts, and 7 runs (4 earned runs) in 5 innings. On top of that, the 'FA's biggest fish' Eom Sang-baek's 10-run slump made them fall into a 3-game losing streak for the first time in 47 days since the Suwon KIA game on June 15.
Because the battle between the top 5 was so fierce, KT's ranking dropped from 4th to 6th place (49 wins, 2 draws, 51 losses) despite the 3-game losing streak. As rival teams Samsung, Doosan Bears, and SSG Landers are on the rise, the gap with 5th place SSG has widened to 2 games, and they are now slightly ahead of 7th place NC Dinos in terms of winning percentage. KT, who was just about to take 4th place, had their magical journey put on the brakes with a shocking sweep.
KT will play a fateful weekend 3-game series with 7th place NC Dinos at Changwon NC Park starting on the 2nd. With left-handed ace Wes Benjamin scheduled to start on the first day, attention is focused on whether he can become a stopper of the losing streak. A win is essential, as a loss on the 2nd would drop their ranking to 7th place.
