First-time champions emerge in first regular season during COVID-19 pandemic

▲ In this file photo from Oct. 15, 2020, Park Kun-woo of the Doosan Bears points to the stands after hitting a two-run single against the Hanwha Eagles during the bottom of the fourth inning of a Korea Baseball Organization regular season game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. (Yonhap)

▲ Park Byung-ho of the Kiwoom Heroes rounds the bases after hitting a three-run home run against the Doosan Bears in the top of the seventh inning of a Korea Baseball Organization regular season game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Oct. 23, 2020. (Yonhap)

▲ Hwang Jae-gyun of the KT Wiz (R) celebrates his solo home run against the Kia Tigers with teammate Mel Rojas Jr. during the top of the fourth inning of a Korea Baseball Organization regular season game at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju, 330 kilometers south of Seoul, on Oct. 27, 2020. (Yonhap)

▲ LG Twins players celebrate their 8-4 victory over the Kia Tigers in a Korea Baseball Organization regular season game at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju, 330 kilometers south of Seoul, on Oct. 23, 2020. (Yonhap)

▲ This image provided by the NC Dinos on Oct. 25, 2020, shows the emblem celebrating the club's Korea Baseball Organization regular season title. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

▲ Members of the NC Dinos celebrate their first Korea Baseball Organization regular season title following a 3-3 tie with the LG Twins at Changwon NC Park in Changwon, 400 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Oct. 24, 2020. (Yonhap)

baseball-season wrap

First-time champions emerge in first regular season during COVID-19 pandemic

By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) -- Hardly anything has been normal in the 2020 Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) regular season -- not the way it began belatedly or the way it was played most of the time without fans or the way teams reached the finish line without any midsummer breather.

Of course, these aren't normal times in which we live, what with the novel coronavirus pandemic.

And this most unusual of KBO regular seasons belonged to the NC Dinos.

The Dinos captured their first-ever regular season title and booked a spot in the Korean Series. They did so last Saturday, with a week left of the season. And in keeping with the strange traditions of the year, the Dinos secured first place with a tie. They're the first club to do so in league history.

The Dinos climbed to first place on May 13, the ninth day of the season after its start was pushed back by more than a month, and never came down.

The Dinos rode the KBO's most productive offense to the top. Entering Friday, with two games to play, the Dinos were leading the league with 881 runs scored, 185 home runs and a .464 slugging percentage. They also became the first team in KBO history to produce three players with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs: Yang Eui-ji (33 homers and 124 RBIs), Na Sung-bum (33 homers and 110 RBIs) and Aaron Altherr (30 homers and 107 RBIs).

In pursuit of their first Korean Series title, the Dinos have odds in their favor. The top-seeded club has won the championship about 80 percent of the time so far.

The Dinos finish their season Saturday with one final makeup game against the Kia Tigers.

Four other postseason spots were locked up with about a week left in the season, though their jostling for position has continued through the final week.

The LG Twins, the KT Wiz, the Kiwoom Heroes and the Doosan Bears are all playoff bound. The Wiz, which joined the KBO as an expansion franchise in 2015, are going to be in their first postseason. The Wiz and the Heroes are both going for their first championship. The Twins haven't won it all since 1994, while the Bears are chasing their second straight title and fourth in six seasons.

The Wiz's surge to postseason contention has been one of the feel-good stories of a season that could certainly use a few. The Wiz stumbled out of the gate, owing mostly to their shaky bullpen. They ranked eighth at the end of June with a 21-27 record, but they have gone 59-34 plus a tie since then to leap into the playoff picture.

The Twins, the Heroes and the Bears, all based in Seoul, stayed in the top five for most of the season. The Heroes and then the Twins threatened to overtake the Dinos for first place during the second half, before ultimately falling short. All told, this has been one of the tightest pennant races in recent memory.

The Heroes, meanwhile, went through an unexpected managerial change late in the season. With a dozen games left, manager Son Hyuk abruptly resigned, citing his inability to live up to lofty expectations placed on the talented club. The Heroes were in third place at the time of Son's departure, though it's widely believed he was sacked by the upper management because he refused to listen to input from upstairs without pushback.

One other club changed skippers this year, for wholly justifiable reasons. The Hanwha Eagles let go of their skipper Han Yong-duk in June in the midst of their 18-game losing streak, which tied the league record. Their minor league skipper, Choi Won-ho, took over on an interim basis.

Choi couldn't quite turn things around for the Eagles, which will finish last and miss the postseason for the 12th time in the last 14 years.

The SK Wyverns' stunning fall from grace was another major storyline of 2020. They've finished this season in ninth place -- only two years after winning the Korean Series and spending most of the 2019 regular season in first place before a second-half swoon cost them a spot in the second straight Korean Series.

For this year, the Wyverns lost two of their best starters from 2019 -- Angel Sanchez, who went 17-5 with a 2.62 ERA last year and then left for Japan, and Kim Kwang-hyun, the franchise icon who was 17-6 with a 2.51 ERA in 2019 and bolted to sign with the St. Louis Cardinals.

They never replaced those two hurlers. Nick Kingham, one of the two new foreign pitchers, made just two starts and got cut after battling assorted injuries. Ricardo Pinto, the other foreign pitcher, has stuck around for the whole season but has often had trouble controlling his pitches on the mound and his emotions in the dugout.

The Samsung Lions and the Kia Tigers have been left on the outside looking in for the second straight season. The Lions, in particular, have missed the postseason for a franchise-worst fifth-straight season, after playing in every Korean Series from 2010 to 2015.

The Lotte Giants were once again a team just good enough to break the hearts of their diehard fans. They're entering the final day of the season with a 70-71-1 record, a 22-win improvement from their last-place showing in 2019, but still not good enough for a postseason berth.

During the pandemic, KBO clubs only enjoyed a brief window from late July to mid-August when fans were allowed to attend games. A sudden spike in COVID-19 cases in August forced the KBO to close stadium gates once again, and it wasn't until mid-October that they opened back up.

At the reopening, the size of crowds was capped at 30 percent of stadium capacity. The KBO announced Thursday the cap will rise to 50 percent during the postseason.


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