Fans attend a Korea Baseball Organization preseason game between the home team Kia Tigers and the Samsung Lions at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju, 270 kilometers south of Seoul, on March 16, 2025. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 19 (Korea Bizwire) — The Kia Tigers will eye their second straight South Korean baseball title as the 2025 season of changes opens Saturday with five games across the country.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) will have its earliest start to a season this weekend, with the Tigers hosting the NC Dinos at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju, 270 kilometers south of Seoul, to begin their Korean Series title defense.
The Tigers will try to become the first team to repeat as champions since the 2015-16 Doosan Bears.
The Samsung Lions, the runners-up to the Tigers last year, will bring home the Kiwoom Heroes to Daegu, 235 kilometers south of Seoul. The 2023 champions, LG Twins, will open their season at home in Seoul against the Lotte Giants.
The SSG Landers will take on the Bears at home in Incheon, just west of the capital city. The KT Wiz will host the Hanwha Eagles in Suwon, about 30 kilometers south of Seoul.
All five games on Saturday will begin at 2 p.m. After the two-game series on the first weekend, teams will go on to play a pair of three-game sets each week, with Monday being the designated day off, through the end of August — with an exception of a four-game series right after the July 11-16 All-Star break.
Remaining games of the 144-game season will be made up in September.
Kia Tigers players celebrate their 11-5 win over the Samsung Lions in a Korea Baseball Organization preseason game at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju, some 270 kilometers south of Seoul, on March 16, 2025. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
Having retained most of their championship core, the Tigers are considered a heavy favorite to win the Korean Series title this year. Their deep and powerful lineup is led by the reigning regular-season MVP Kim Do-yeong, who enjoyed a historic campaign in 2024 in his age 20-season. He became the youngest player ever to record at least 30 home runs and 30 steals in a season, and set a new league record with 143 runs scored.
The Tigers’ American ace James Naile is back for his second season after leading the KBO with a 2.53 ERA. The Tigers replaced outfielder Socrates Brito with former Chicago Cubs slugger Patrick Wisdom, a three-time 20-homer man in Major League Baseball.
The Lions and the Twins, both of them postseason contestants last year, are expected to push the Tigers in 2025. The Lions signed two new starting pitchers, Ariel Jurado and Choi Won-tae, while rookie reliever Bae Chan-seung has flashed impressive stuff in spring. The Twins bolstered their bullpen, which fell from first in 2023 to sixth in ERA in 2024, by signing former Tigers setup Jang Hyun-sik in free agency.
The Wiz and the Eagles boast deep starting rotations, with the Eagles trying to make their first postseason since 2018 while playing at a brand new stadium, Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark. It will also host the All-Star Game in July.
The Bears brought in three new foreign players for 2025, signing pitchers Cole Irvin and Zach Logue, and outfielder Jake Cave, after getting mixed results from their foreign contingent in 2024. Now in his final year of a three-year deal, Bears manager Lee Seung-yuop will be under pressure to take the team deeper into the postseason than he did the previous two years.
The Eagles’ move into the new park is one of several changes for 2025.
The most notable new feature will be the pitch clock, which the KBO tried to put in place last year, only to be met with opposition from the clubs. The league will push ahead this year, forcing pitchers to begin their delivery within 20 seconds with the bases empty, and 25 seconds with runners on. A violation will result in a ball call for pitchers.
Batters must get into the box within 33 seconds, and they only have two timeouts per plate appearance. A violation will lead to a strike call against the batter.
Tied games will be called after 11 innings, instead of 12 innings, as the league hopes to shorten games and keep players fresh.
The KBO set its single-season attendance record in 2024 with just over 10.88 million fans, topping the previous mark by about 2.4 million. It picked up where it left off to start the preseason, with a record 71,288 fans flocking to see five mostly meaningless games on March 9.
(Yonhap)
