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KIA Tigers and Hanwha Eagles will meet for the first time in this year's pennant race. KIA and Hanwha will have their first showdown in the 2024 KBO League at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on the 12th.
The two teams held two consecutive exhibition games from April 11-12. KIA won the first game 3-0 in Daejeon at the time, but Hanwha won the second game 9-1 the next day. The pennant race, not the exhibition game, will be held in Gwangju, but the venue will be changed to Daejeon, and they will meet again in a month.
KIA had a slight advantage in past matches with eight wins, one draw and seven losses. Unlike the team, which had 12 wins and four losses in the 2022 season and 10 wins, three draws and three losses in the 2021 season, it was a close game last season.
KIA's dominance over the past three seasons may turn upside down this year. This is not the Hanwha Eagles it used to be. Having won seven consecutive games in the early days of this season, the team once pushed out KIA and took the lead. The team seemed to lose momentum by winning five consecutive games, but it rebounded after winning the game against Doosan Bears in Jamsil on Tuesday by banking on Ryu's perfect pitching of six scoreless innings.
KIA is taking a light step forward in the away game. It swept all three consecutive games during the week against the LG Twins, the defending champion. Despite consecutive injuries sustained in two to three consecutive games, the team continued to win the game. The momentum that had been slowing down after the opening four consecutive games seems to be rekindling with three consecutive wins against LG.
However, the Hanwha Eagles cannot afford to lose their home ground. Even after losing five consecutive games, the Eagles could hardly afford to lose ground easily. At the game against Doosan on Tuesday last week, when Ryu Hyun-jin took the mound for five consecutive games, the bullpen session that led to Jang Si-hwan, Han Seung-hyuk, and Joo Hyun-sang gave up just one walk during three innings, silencing Doosan`s batters to secure a win.
KIA's on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) is 0.789, a one-ri gap with Hanwha's (0.788). The two teams have the same slugging percentage (KIA 0.428 and Hanwha 0.428), only a slight difference in the team's on-base percentage (KIA 0.361, Hanwha 0.360). While KIA had 20 stolen bases, Hanwha had only four successes, but Hanwha took 72 while KIA had 49 walks. Unlike KIA fielders who made 20 errors in 14 games, Hanwha had only eight errors in 15 games.
In the showdown on the 12th, KIA announced its selection of Yoon Young-chul and Hanwha announced its selection of Felix Peña.
Since his debut in the KBO league last year, Yoon has been strong against Hanwha. He pitched 16 innings in the 2023 season, with one win and no loss, with an ERA of 2.81. His batting average was 230. In the three games against KIA last year, Peña was responsible for 15 ⅓ innings, with 2-1 loss and an ERA of 7.04. Yoon had one win and no loss, with 3.72 ERA, and Peña had 2-1 win and 4.91 ERA in three games this season.
The showdown between the two teams is likely to take place amid keen interest. Hanwha played all five home games it played this season with a packed audience. During the Winnow season, Ryu Hyun-jin, the "Korean Monster" who announced the completion of the rebuilding process, took the top spot. Against this backdrop, KIA, the "popular national team" that took the lead from the beginning of this season, has come to Daejeon. Expectations are high that all three consecutive weekend games will be held with a packed audience.
