Twins end Bears' run in final postseason Jamsil Derby

The LG Twins edged the Doosan Bears 4-1 in a tense Wildcard to win the last postseason Jamsil Derby and move on to the first round of the playoffs.

The defending champions beat their Seoul rivals on Wednesday at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Songpa District, southern Seoul. As the fourth-place team, LG started the Wildcard with a one-win advantage over the fifth-place Bears, so a single victory was enough to send the Twins through. LG will face the third-place Kia Tigers in the first round of the playoffs in a best-of-five series that opens Saturday in Gwangju.

First baseman Austin Dean decided the game with a two-run homer off Doosan ace Gwak Been in the bottom of the first inning. Dean, who turned 33 on the day, was named the game’s MVP.

With one out and a runner on first, Dean jumped on a curveball that Gwak left up in the zone. The ball sailed in a high arc over the outfield wall, and the LG crowd roared.

Widely regarded as the best foreign hitter in LG history, Dean has hit 127 home runs in 539 games since joining the club in 2023, including 41 this season, the third most in the league.

Dean went into the postseason in a slump, however, with eight hits in 39 at-bats over his last 10 games for a .205 average. Dean also slipped to third in the home run race. The first-inning homer showed why LG has kept him for four seasons.

The game then turned into a pitchers’ duel. LG starter Carlos Carrasco held Doosan scoreless through six innings. Gwak, stung by the early homer, allowed nothing more from the second inning on and touched 159 kilometers per hour (99 miles per hour) with his fastball. Gwak’s 10 strikeouts matched the Wildcard record set by LG’s Casey Kelly against the Kiwoom Heroes in 2020.

Doosan threatened in the seventh. Yunior Severino led off with a single to center, and catcher Yang Eui-ji followed with a double down the right-field line to put runners on second and third with no outs. LG brought in reliever Jon Kennedy.

Kennedy struck out Kim Min-suk but hit Kang Seung-ho with a pitch to load the bases with one out. Yang Suk-hwan, pinch-hitting for Jung Soo-bin, then drove the ball deep into right-center field. Had it dropped, the hit could have cleared the bases.

LG center fielder Park Hae-min, known for his range, had other ideas. Park made a long run and caught the ball in front of the wall. Severino tagged up and scored from third, but the momentum swung to LG.

The Twins added insurance in the eighth. With runners on first and third and one out, second baseman Shin Min-jae laid down a squeeze bunt toward third that brought pinch runner Choi Won-yeong home. Doosan third baseman An Jae-seok failed to handle the ball cleanly. Back-to-back wild pitches then gave LG one more run.

Gwak held LG to two runs over six innings, but Doosan was outplayed at the plate and in the field, and the Bears’ season ended there.

The game was also the last postseason meeting between the two rivals at Jamsil, which opened in 1982 and is set to be torn down after this season to make way for a domed ballpark.

The Twins and the Bears first met in the first round of the 1993 playoffs, and Wednesday’s game was their seventh postseason matchup. Doosan had won four of the previous six meetings, and LG had not won a postseason series against the Bears since 1998.

A sellout crowd of 23,650 packed Jamsil on Wednesday. The KBO’s run of postseason sellouts now stands at 38 straight games.

BY BAE YOUNG-EUN, KO BONG-JUN [[email protected]]