Friday, October 31, 2008

Korean Series, Game 4 News and Roundup

Am I the only one that finds this a little creepy?

"Ci-vil! Ser-vice!" Thump Thump, thump thump thump, "Ci-vil! Ser-vice!"

The KT posts one of the poorest recaps/articles I have ever read. They just don't care, do they?

SK 4, Doosan 1
W - Ga Deuk-yeob, L - Matt Randel, S - Chae Byeong-yong
SK leads the series, 3-1

Poor Matt Randel. He takes this game into the 7th inning and he can't get any help from the Doosan offense. In Randel's 7 innings(116 pitches, 73 strikes) of work, he allowed 3 runs on 8 hits and 1 walk with 5 K's. SK starter, Song Eun-beom, didn't make it out of the 3rd inning. It was again up to the SK bullpen to piece together a ballgame and they did just that. 7 SK pitchers combined to scatter 7 hits and allow Doosan to push across only one run.

SK drew first blood in the first inning. SK's Kim Jae-hyeon drove in the 1st run with an RBI single after a botched throw on a stolen base attempt allowed Park Jae-sang to go to 3rd. Doosan would answer in the 2nd inning. Doosan slugger, Kim Dong-ju, lead off with a double to deep center. He was advanced to third by DH Hong Seong-heun on a seeing-eye single up the middle. The next batter, Oh Jae-won, would ground into a double play, but the run would score to make the game 1-1.

I think I'll remember the gratuitous fist pumps best.

Surprise. Shock. Horror.

In the 4th inning, SK's Choi Jeong would rip a double down the 3rd baseline to drive in the go ahead run. Then in the 7th with runners on 1st and 2nd with 1 out, Lee Jin-yeong would hit a lazy grounder to short. It would be fielded cleanly and the force out at second was recorded, but the throw to first was wild. Lee would be safe and SK would score it's 3rd run. In the 9th inning, SK would tack on an "Efff you run" on a wild pitch from reliever Lee Yong-chan. Na Ju-hwan would scamper across the plate to make the game 4-1. Doosan couldn't even muster enough for a fake rally in the bottom of the 9th. After a lead off single and a stolen base from Choi Seung-hwan, the inning died fairly quickly thanks to a strikeout and a few ground balls. Game over.

An excited Chae Byeong-yong records the save.

The action continues tonight in Seoul's Jamsil stadium at 6pm. Kim Sun-woo will try to keep Doosan's playoff hopes alive, while Kim Kwang-hyeon will try to extinguish them. Get the champagne on ice! Doosan! SK! Kim! Kim! KBO Fever Tonight on KBS!


Aaron said...

That is a creepy photo. Looks like his tongue is in her ear.

Eujin said...

I think SK were deliberately rotating the pitching. I don't know why. None of their pitchers ever looked in real trouble. Maybe it was a ploy to keep the Doosan hitters off-balance. Well, it certainly worked whatever the reason.

I thought moving Ko Yong-min to second in the line-up was an odd choice. That meant that Doosan had two hitters in a row hitting under .100 at the two and three spots. Ko got on base a couple of times, he even got a hit, but Kim Hyeon-su had a rough night, getting caught a couple of times by great defensive plays. You could really see his frustration.

On the whole I thought Doosan were poor. Matt pitched well, but you could see he was getting tired by the seventh and his speed dropped off a lot. I think Kim Gyeong-mun is revealing a certain lack of faith in his bull-pen, in complete contrast to the situation at SK.

I tried to start a cheer of "let's go Randel" at one point, which I think he might have appreciated more than the tired "sam chin" but to no avail. They also don't do rally caps in Korea, but I guess that shouldn't surprise me.

There was very little base-running going on. I don't remember a single attempted steal from Doosan. Eight hits and a bunch of walks but only one run tells its own story. The fact that they scored their only run on a double play likewise. They had opportunities thoughout the night be could never deliver when it really mattered. About fives times they had the count at 3 and 1 and took a strike without swinging. No doubt they'll come out tonight and swing at everything.

Bases loaded, full count, bottom of the eighth inning, two runs down, game four of the championship series. That's the stuff that dreams are made of isn't it?

Aaron said...

Looks like Korea Times had to leave the championship write up to the overworked editor who doesn't like sports again.