Kang Seung-ho of the Doosan Bears hits a two-run home run against the NC Dinos during a Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Sept. 24, 2024. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — With two home runs and three RBIs on Tuesday for the Doosan Bears, hard-hitting second baseman Kang Seung-ho kept adding to his career-high numbers across the board.
After helping the Bears beat the NC Dinos 10-5 at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, Kang is now batting .282/.330/.480 with 18 home runs and 80 RBIs — all of them his personal best.
This win and a loss by the SSG Landers on Tuesday night allowed the Bears to lock down a postseason spot. And Kang insisted Tuesday all he cared about was having a deeper postseason run than a year ago, when the Bears lasted just one game.
They are in fourth place at 72-68-2 (wins-losses-ties), leading the KT Wiz (70-70-2) by two games with two to play. The Landers (68-70-2) are in sixth by one game, but they have four games to go, meaning they are still in play for fourth place.
Regardless of other teams’ results, the Bears will not finish lower than fifth. It will send them to the wild card game.
No. 4 and No. 5 seeds will square off there, with the higher seed needing a win or a tie and the lower seed needing two wins. In last year’s wild card game, the Bears lost to the No. 4 seed Dinos 14-9.
“Last year, our season ended before we realized what hit us,” Kang said. “It was such a painful experience for us. We will try to avoid making the same mistakes this year. Since we played just one postseason game last year, we want to play a few more this time.”
Kang said the key for his club is to make sure they won’t try to do too much.
“Obviously, everyone wants to win in big games. But when you press too hard, it can lead to poor results,” Kang said. “We have to relax a bit and try to enjoy the game.”
Kang said the Bears will be ready whomever they face in the wild card contest.
“If we can just play our baseball, I think we will be a much different version of ourselves than last year,” Kang added.
Kang is two dingers away from 20, a nice round number, but said the only statistic he cares about is the number of games played.
He had hoped to play all 144 games but his streak came to an end on Saturday when he missed both games of a doubleheader due to stomach flu. He played Sunday but sat out Monday’s game.
“My biggest goal for the season was to play every game. I was so devastated that I had to miss a game so late in the season,” Kang said. “I want to thank my coaching staff for giving me an opportunity to play off the bench when I was struggling earlier in the year. I will try to play every game next season.
(Yonhap)
