SSG Landers starter Pedro Avila reacts during a match against the LG Twins in Incheon on Sept. 29.SSG LANDERS
SSG Landers starter Pedro Avila claimed his second complete-game win of the season on Tuesday, another reminder of his dominance in the second half.
Avila went all nine innings against the LG Twins at SSG Landers Field in Incheon. He allowed one run on eight hits, including a home run, and struck out six in SSG’s 7-1 win. LG suffered its third straight loss and now sits two games ahead of the fourth-place Kia Tigers.
Avila shut down LG with a fastball that reached 156 kilometers per hour (97 miles per hour) and a steady mix of change-ups and curveballs. He threw 103 pitches. Since he joined SSG as a replacement foreign player at the start of the second half, Avila has compiled 8 victories and 2 losses and a 1.45 ERA across 13 starts.
Avila has now gone the distance twice this season, a feat no other KBO pitcher has matched. His first was a shutout against the Doosan Bears on Sept. 4.
“He showed every bit of why he has been the KBO’s best pitcher in the second half,” said SSG manager Lee Sung-yong.
SSG scored twice in the first behind consecutive doubles from Park Seong-han and Choi Ji-hoon and an LG throwing error. The lead grew to 4-0 in the third when Guillermo Heredia and Jeon Eui-san launched back-to-back home runs. LG’s Park Hae-min answered with a solo shot off Avila in the fourth, but any hint of a comeback quickly faded. Park of the Landers drove in two runs in the bottom half, and Ko Myeong-jun added a sacrifice fly in the seventh to finish off the scoring.
LG starter Anders Tolhurst throws a ball against the Kiwoom Heroes on July 28 in southern Seoul.NEWS1
LG starter Anders Tolhurst lasted just three innings for LG and gave up four runs, three earned, on four hits, including two homers. The loss dropped him to 12-11 on the season.
The Doosan Bears beat the NC Dinos 5-2 at home in Jamsil. The result stretched the gap between fifth-place Doosan and sixth-place NC to seven games and all but settled the race for the final playoff spot, which carries the final wild-card berth.
Second-place Samsung Lions beat the Hanwha Eagles 10-5 at home in Daegu for their third straight win. But a win by the KT Wiz meant Samsung made no ground in the standings and remained three games behind the league-leading Wiz. The Lotte Giants took down the Kiwoom Heroes 4-2 in Busan.
Elsewhere, the first-place KT rallied for an 8-5 win over the Kia Tigers in Gwangju in 10 innings.
KT Wiz’s Kim Hyun-soo blasted his 11th career grand slam in the second inning, and Asian Games closer Park Yeong-hyun picked up his seventh win of the season in relief to go with 27 saves.
Kia Tigers' Kim Do-yeong reacts after hitting a homer at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on Sept. 29.YONHAP
Kia’s Kim Do-yeong homered in his first at-bat back from the Asian Games for his league-leading 41st of the season, butKia still came up short. The homer gave him the Kia franchise record for most home runs in a season.
Kim Do-yeong started at third base and batted third against the KT Wiz at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on Tuesday, and he went deep in his first trip to the plate.
With one out and a runner on first in the bottom of the first, Kim drove a 147-kilometer-per-hour fastball from KT starter Logan Allen well over the right-center-field wall for a two-run homer that opened the scoring.
Kim’s 41st homer broke the Kia single-season record of 40 set by Tracy Sanders in 1999, a mark that had stood for 27 years.
Kim also opened a two-homer lead over Austin Dean of the LG Twins and Sam Hilliard of the KT Wiz, who are tied for second with 39 in this season.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
