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Bears ruin Twins' bid to clinch KBO pennant at home

Published: 01 Oct. 2025, 09:18

LG Twins players react to their 6-0 loss to the Doosan Bears in their Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Sept. 30. [YONHAP]

The Doosan Bears ruined their Seoul rival LG Twins' bid to grab the Korean baseball pennant at home Tuesday night with a convincing 6-0 victory.

In order to clinch the best regular-season record in the KBO, the Twins, who entered the game leading the Hanwha Eagles by 2 1/2 games in first place, either needed a win or a loss or a tie by the Eagles against the Lotte Giants on Tuesday.

They didn't get any of that in their favor, as they managed only three hits at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, and the Eagles beat the Giants 1-0 in 10 innings at Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark in Daejeon.

The Twins, now 85-54-3 (wins-losses-ties), will take another crack in their season finale Wednesday night against the NC Dinos.

The Eagles, 1 1/2 games back of the Twins at 83-56-3, play the SSG Landers on Wednesday and then finish their regular season against the KT Wiz on Friday.

The Bears finished the season in ninth place at 61-77-6.

Former Twin Yang Suk-hwan smacked a two-run home run to put the Bears on the board in the top of the fourth inning, hammering a 3-2 fastball from starter Song Seung-ki for his eighth home run of 2025.

Bears starter Cole Irvin stifled the Twins over 5 1/3 scoreless innings, giving up just two singles.

The Twins wasted a couple of promising rallies with double play balls. In the fourth, Austin Dean drew a leadoff walk against Irvin but cleanup Moon Bo-gyeong bounced into a 4-6-3 double play. Oh Ji-hwan struck out to end that inning.

With one out in the sixth, the Twins got a walk and a single off Irvin to chase him from the game. Facing reliever Lee Young-ha, Dean grounded into an inning-ending, 4-6-3 twin killing.

Park Ji-hoon's two-out double in the top seventh pushed the Bears' lead to 3-0.

Starting pitcher Zach Logue made his first relief appearance of the season for the Bears and pitched around a one-out single to keep the Twins off the board in the bottom seventh.

The Bears rubbed salt into the Twins' wound in the top ninth, opening up a 6-0 lead thanks to Park's RBI single and Jake Cave's two-run double.

Amid the chaotic finish to the season, the SSG Landers locked down No. 3 seed Tuesday by beating the Kiwoom Heroes 4-3.

With their fourth consecutive win, the Landers improved to 74-63-4 with three games left.

The Samsung Lions grabbed the fourth seed after shutting down the Kia Tigers 5-0 to move to 74-67-2. They are two games behind the Landers with one game left and hold a 2 1/2-game lead over the NC Dinos, who have two more games to play.

The Dinos climbed to fifth place by defeating the KT Wiz 9-4 for their seventh straight victory. Both the Dinos and the Wiz have two games left.

The postseason is scheduled to begin with a wild card round between the Lions and the No. 5 team. The Lions, as the higher seed, will advance to the next round with a win or a tie, and will have two chances to do so at home. The lower-seeded team must win two straight games on the road.

As the No. 3 seed, the Landers earned a bye to the best-of-five first round.

The second seed will advance directly to the second round, another best-of-five series. The regular-season champion will get a bye to the best-of-seven Korean Series.

Yonhap