Home > Sports > Baseball

Defending KBO champions Tigers eliminated from postseason contention

Published: 26 Sep. 2025, 18:56

Kia Tigers pitcher Hwang Dong-ha throws the ball during a KBO game against the SSG Landers at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on Sept. 23. [KIA TIGERS]

The Kia Tigers will not have a chance to defend their title in Korean baseball this fall, absorbing one final gut punch in what has been a frustrating, injury-ravaged season.

The Tigers were eliminated from KBO postseason contention on Wednesday night while they were idle. The fifth-place KT Wiz hammered the SSG Landers 10-1 to improve to 70-66-4 (wins-losses-ties) with four games to play. With that result, the Tigers fell six games behind the Wiz in eighth place at 63-71-4 with six games to go.

Even if the Tigers win out and the Wiz lose all four of their remaining games, the gap is insurmountable. In that scenario, the Wiz will finish right at .500, 70-70-4, while the Tigers will still be two games below the break-even mark at 69-71-4.

The Tigers will now try to avoid becoming only the second team to finish in eighth place or lower a year after winning the Korean Series.

The Tigers won the 2024 Korean Series with relative ease, and after they retained most of their core and added some pieces, the club was the trendy preseason pick among many pundits to repeat as the champions.

But they suffered rotten injury luck all season, losing position players and pitchers up and down their roster.

The devastating blow — perhaps an inauspicious sign of things on the horizon — came during the very first game of the season on March 22, when third baseman Kim Do-yeong, the reigning league MVP, suffered a hamstring injury while rounding first base on a single.

After missing a little over a month with a left hamstring strain, Kim returned and played from late April to late May before hurting his right hamstring after a steal attempt.

He didn't come back until Aug. 5 but then injured his left hamstring again, this time while playing defense at third, two days later. The Tigers ruled him out for the remainder of the season.

The young superstar ended up playing only 30 games, a year after appearing in 141 of the team's 144 games while taking the KBO by storm with 38 home runs, 40 steals, a .347/.420/.647 line and a league-record 143 runs scored.

Kim's extended absence alone doesn't explain the Tigers' demise, but it is certainly one of the biggest reasons.

Baseball fans wait for the start of a KBO game between the KT Wiz and the Kia Tigers under umbrellas in the rain at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field on Sept. 5. [YONHAP]

Even without Kim for most of the season, the Tigers clawed their way to second place by July 5, only three games out of first place. But then they went on to win just one of their next 13 games and took a nosedive to seventh place. They had the KBO's second-worst record in both July (6-12-1) and August (10-14-0).

They opened September in eighth place, three and a half games behind the fifth and final postseason spot with 21 games to play. It was certainly not an insurmountable gap with so many games remaining, but the Tigers proceeded to lose 10 of their next 16 games — four of them by one run.

In a statistical contrast illustrative of their season, the Tigers have hit the second-most home runs with 139, but they are dead last with a .248 batting average with runners in scoring position.

It has been just that kind of all-or-nothing season for the Tigers. At the top of their game, they looked as lethal as any team in the league. But they spent way more time looking toothless.

Fans have expressed their displeasure with the club. Through their latest home game on Sunday, the Tigers had averaged 15,587 fans per game at home in Gwangju. Last year, they drew 17,250 fans per home game.

In a season in which the KBO shattered its single-season attendance record with nearly a month left on the schedule, the Tigers are the only team to suffer a decrease in average home attendance.

Yonhap