LG Twins Ends ‘Director Cruel Death' and Finally Goes Straight to Korean Series with Yeom Kyung-yeop's Total Baseball
After 10 years of darkness, he became a baseball regular in the fall of 2010, developed his stamina, and finally took on the challenge of winning.
The fact that professional baseball's LG Twins advanced directly to the Korean Series as first place in the regular league in 29 years was a major event that lifted the curtain of darkness that had covered one spot in the KBO League.
Since winning the regular league and Korean Series combined championship in 1994 with Shinbaram Baseball, LG won the title of first place in the regular league again only when the strong and weak points changed for the third time. 카지노사이트원
It has been 21 years since 2002, when they started in 4th place and finished in runner-up, in the Korean Series.
LG fans had to endure a long period of time where the word ‘it's too late' is not enough for a team that was doing well to fall to the bottom and then return to the top.
Coach Yeom Kyung-yeop, who passed the first hurdle to solve LG's long-awaited goal of winning the Korean Series for the first time in 29 years since 1994, finally ended the Twins' ‘cruel death as manager'.
Since former coach Lee Kwang-hwan, who led LG to its last championship, resigned in 1996, 11 coaches, including former coach Ryu Ji-hyun, have taken the helm of LG.
Including three acting managers, 14 people sat at LG’s command tower.
The LG manager position, with an average tenure of just over two years, was therefore called the ‘poisoned chalice.’
The result of frequent manager changes was the failure of fall baseball for 10 consecutive years from 2003 to 2012.
Instead of fresh winds, old winds blew from everywhere, and it was impossible to be sure when the tunnel of darkness would end.
In 2013, when former coach Kim Ki-tae was leading the team, LG finally escaped the quagmire and returned to the postseason for the first time in 11 years by taking second place in the regular league.
Since then, he has solidified his position as a ‘contender' (challenger) who will aim for the championship on the fall baseball stage every year, except three times, over the past 10 years until this year.
However, as they failed to overcome the playoff barrier each time, they appointed Coach Yeom, former coach of Nexen Heroes and SK Wyverns (currently SSG Landers), as their championship contractor and took on the challenge again.
Coach Yeom, who knows the Twins' situation well as he served as the head of LG's operations team and defense coach, led the team to the top rankings throughout the season with a strategy of building a thick player base that narrowed the gap between starters and candidates, and gave them a direct ticket to the Korean Series.
Manager Yeom's baseball, which utilizes 100% of the fielders in the dugout, regardless of whether they are starting players, pinch hitters, or substitute defenders, has become a new model of total baseball.
LG's fearless baseball performance created a big buzz at the beginning of the season, regardless of its success or failure.
Coach Yeom ordered the runners to run without hesitation in order to put pressure on the opponent and score points, and the result was an unrivaled 1st place in the team in stolen bases (158).
Four players, Moon Seong-joo (22), Park Hae-min (24), Shin Min-jae (35), and Hong Chang-gi (23), led the Twins' scoring effort by recording more than 20 stolen bases.
LG's bat, which has been consistent throughout the season, is largely responsible for achieving first place.
LG's batting line exploded without ups and downs, ignoring the common belief in the baseball world that there is a clear ‘cycle' of good and bad times in batting.
In the monthly team batting average, LG never fell outside of third place, but only fell to sixth and fourth place in August and September.
LG Twins, which maintained the lead for over three months after pushing SSG to second place and rising to first place on June 27, was not fatally injured by that level of poor batting.
Thanks to a bat that always hits well and bold foot baseball, LG ranked first in scoring (733 points), first in slugging percentage (0.397), and second in scoring average (0.298), accumulating victory through ‘offensive baseball' in which everyone hits and runs.
Austin Dean, who had a batting average of 0.310, 22 home runs, and 92 RBIs, completely solved LG's long-standing problem of foreign hitters, and perennial candidate Shin Min-jae showed off his skills in batting and base running just five seasons after his professional debut, helping Manager Yeom's team win.
He emerged as the protagonist of ‘Operation Baseball’.
Even when last year's Hold King Jung Woo-young and Save King Go Woo-seok were underperforming, the mound did not lose its majesty.
Veteran right-hander Jin-seong Kim (5 wins, 1 loss, 20 holds), and new members Young-chan Yoo (6 wins, 3 losses, 10 holds), Seung-hyeon Baek (1 win, 10 holds), and Deok-joo Ham (4 wins, 16 holds), who have recently joined the pitching team, supported their backs.
Coach Yeom's pre-season plan to make Pil Seung-jo ‘double-layered' came true, and even though one layer was removed, he persevered.
KBSN commentator Park Yong-taek, a former LG legend who knows the Twins' situation better than anyone else, said, “LG, which emerged from the dark age that lasted for 10 years, has reorganized its system step by step in the field of training and scouting, and has achieved the result of being first in the regular league.”
“LG’s achievement of first place should not be viewed simply as an achievement of this year or the past few years,” he asserted.
LG, which is one step closer to winning the championship, will rest for nearly three weeks to reorganize its lineup and then face the winner of the playoffs in the final match in the Korean Series (4 wins out of 7).
