Few teams can claim such a dramatic rise in the standings after a slow start, but the KT Wiz have jumped from last place to third in less than two months.
On April 4, KT won 4-3 against the Doosan Bears in the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. With the win, KT extended its winning streak to seven games and improved to 48 wins (43 L, 2 T) on the season, knocking Doosan out of second place and into third.
KT’s vaunted starting pitching shined again. Choi Byeol-seong pitched six innings of two-run ball, shutting down the Doosan bats and recording a quality start (six innings or more and three earned runs or less). It was the seventh consecutive quality start since Uhm Sang-baek threw six innings of two-run ball against the Changwon NC Dinos on March 28.
The starters held up well, and the bats came through in the late innings. In the top of the seventh inning, with the score tied at 2-2, KT regained the lead with a two-run double by Park Byung-ho and a two-run home run by Hwang Jae-gyun, and in the bottom of the eighth, Park Young-hyun came on the mound and pitched 1⅓ innings of relief, giving up just one run to secure the win.
KT was in last place until June 4. The gap to fifth place was six games, and the team’s win-loss margin was -12 (18-30). KT has been called a “slow starter” every season, picking up the pace late in the season, but this season looked like it would be a tough one.
But KT turned it all around in just two months. Injured players started to return, the team started to pick up steam, and the front office made 토토사이트 quick moves to turn things around with a trade (Lee Ho-yeon) and a foreign pitcher (Cuevas). Even KT’s vaunted starting lineup came alive, and KT was on the rise.
By the end of the day, we were up to #3, and our win/loss margin was +5 as usual. That’s pretty impressive considering they were -14 as of May 18. The gap to 6th place (KIA Tigers) is 2.5 games, which isn’t reassuring, but the gap to 2nd place SSG Landers (4 games) isn’t too far off either. It’s a situation where they can look up.
It will be interesting to see how KT’s magic will shake up the top half of the standings.