Bears Keep Lead Over Giants To Start Series

The Doosan Bears picked up their third win of the year over the Lotte Giants on Friday, winning 4-2 at home. The game kicked off a three-game series happening at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, Korea.

Despite the Giants getting 10 hits, double the amount of hits the Bears scored, they were never able to catch up to the lead that was started in the fourth inning.

The first time the two teams met, the Bears took two of the three games.

Strong Pitching From Bears

Continuing his strong year, Bears starting pitcher Raul Alcantara got his fourth win of the year. His appearance lasted six innings, allowing nine hits and two runs. Sitting at 4-1 in five appearances, Alcantara has earned two of those wins against the Giants.

Closing the show for the Bears was Ham Duk-joo, who was given the save after pitching in the ninth. Other relievers Lee Hyun-seung and Yoon Myung-jun pitched an inning each, only allowing one hit.

Giants starter Noh Kyung-eun got his first loss of the year, moving his record to 1-1 over four appearances. He went six innings, earning four strikeouts while allowing four hits and three runs.

Bears Gain Lead

The Bears were first to score, with a hit in the third inning from Park Kun-woo allowing Hur Kyoung-min to score. Kun-woo got home as well, with a hit from Jose Miguel Fernandez letting him score. Fernandez is currently in second place for RBIs in the KBO, with 22 in total, trailing 24 from Kia Tigers player Preston Tucker.

The Giants were able to answer back with a run in the fourth, as a hit from Son Ah-seop brought in Kim Joon-tae.

Extending their lead, the Bears player Park Se-hyuk was able to hustle home off of a sacrifice fly, making the game 3-1 for the home team.

Bringing the game within a run again, a ground ball from Dixon Machado allowed Kim to get home a second time.

Finishing off the scoring in the game, Hur hit a solo shot that put the Bears up 4-2.

Giants Back Down To Latter Half

The Giants have moved back down into the bottom half of the KBO standings, sitting in sixth with a 10-11 record. Moving to 13-8, the Bears sit in third place, two games behind the second-place LG Twins.

The Giants and Bears will meet two more times this week, with game two starting at 5:00PM KST (4:00AM EDT) on Saturday.

Around The KBO

Getting their fifth win in a row, the LG Twins defeated the Kia Tigers in a 6-2 performance.

Down by four runs in the seventh inning, the Samsung Lions were able to mount a comeback over three innings, defeating the NC Dinos 5-4. The Lions become only the fourth team to give the Dinos a loss.

After two runs in the third inning gave the Kiwoom Heroes the lead, they kept the lead for the rest of the game, defeating the KT Wiz 5-1.

While the Hanhwa Eagles scored four runs late in the game, it wasn’t enough to come back from the lead the SK Wyverns had, which ended as an 8-6 win.