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Korean Series opening game pushed back another day as rain continues

Published: 22 Oct. 2024, 14:12 Updated: 23 Oct. 2024, 17:31

JIM BULLEY
[email protected]

The first game of the 2024 Korean Series between the Kia Tigers and Samsung Lions in Gwangju on Monday was suspended due to rain. [NEWS1]

The opening game of the 2024 Korean Series has now been postponed to Wednesday as ongoing rain makes the field unplayable in Gwangju.

The Kia Tigers and Samsung Lions were originally set to face off in Game 1 on Monday, but the game was suspended at the top of the sixth inning due to rain.

Both Games 1 and 2 were then scheduled to be played as a double-header on Tuesday, but ongoing rain and ground maintenance have pushed the schedule back another day to Wednesday.

The Kia Tigers walk off the field after the Korean Series game against the Samsung Lions was suspended due to rain in Gwangju on Monday. [NEWS1]

Game 1 will now resume at 4 p.m. on Wednesday at the top of the sixth inning, with Samsung up 1-0, no outs and runners on first and second base.

Game 2 will begin an hour after Game 1 ends, or at 6:30 p.m. if Game 1 ends before 5:30 p.m.

Tickets for the opening game on Monday are still valid for the remainder of the suspended game on Wednesday, but the stadium will then be cleared before Game 2 starts.

The match-up between the Tigers and Lions in the Korean Series brings together two of Korea’s biggest baseball dynasties.

The Tigers are the most successful team in Korean Series history, winning the title 11 times in 11 appearances — meaning that 1993 series was a win for the Gwangju club. Nearly all of those titles were in the 1980s and ‘90s, with only two since the turn of the century: 2009 and 2017.

The Samsung Lions are the second most successful team in Korean Series history, with seven titles, but have made it to the series a huge 17 times. That number, the highest in the league, means the Lions have lost more than they won.

All seven of the Lions’ titles came after 2000, with the Daegu team dominating much of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Samsung also won the league in 1985, but no Korean Series was held that year, so they took the championship title too.

This year’s Korean Series marks the first that the championship has been played entirely out of Seoul since 2012, when the Lions beat the SK Wyverns, now the SSG Landers, and the first time outside of the greater Seoul area (which includes Incheon and Gyeonggi) since 2006, when the Lions beat the Hanwha Eagles.

It also means that the KBO crown is guaranteed to go to a different team for an eighth consecutive season, with the last back-to-back titles secured by the Doosan Bears from 2015-2016.

BY JIM BULLEY [[email protected]]