KT Wiz couldn’t help but smile as they clinched the Winning Series. It was a frustrating flow.안전놀이터

KT won its 11th game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League against the Kiwoom Heroes 4-3 on Wednesday at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, extending its winning streak to two games. The team also moved up one spot in the standings from eighth to seventh.

Despite a strong performance from starting pitcher William Cuevas, who limited Kiwoom to three runs in 6⅔ innings, the bats put pressure on Kiwoom throughout the game, as all of the starters recorded hits. Choi Sung-ho went 3-for-3 at the plate, while Kim Min-hyuk and Lee Ho-yeon also lived up to the team’s expectations by going 2-for-4.

Notably, none of KT’s 13 hits were long balls, including a home run, and all four runs were scored on sacrifice flies or ground balls with no hits. In the top of the third inning, with runners on first and second, Kang Baek-ho had the “misfortune” of hitting his first triple of the season, and the defense made four errors. It was not a smooth ride.

KT manager Lee Kang-cheol said before the game against Kiwoom on the 13th, “We should have at least two or three doubles, but we scored three runs on a sacrifice fly and one run on a ground ball. In the fifth inning, it was about 7-0, and I had to change the pitcher, but at the end, there was blood,” he said, looking back at the previous game.

“When we got the bases loaded, we gave it all away. I just needed to score one run while standing up. But it didn’t happen. “In the bottom of the ninth, I was standing there with the bases loaded and nobody out, and I was thinking, ‘How can we win with 13 hits and four errors?

But it was the bullpen that kept the lead until the end. Kim Jae-yoon worked out of a bases-loaded, 1-2 situation in the ninth inning, and the manager’s faith in the closer was firm.

“I didn’t feel like I was going to lose,” Lee said. At the end of the ninth inning, my expression was not relaxed, but I wondered what the outcome would be. But I didn’t think about hitting the pitcher straight. I only thought, ‘I wonder if the runners will run like us and make it a triple,’” he said. “I noticed something different about Kim Jae-yoon from before. Until last year, the ball was a little off when he made a blown save, but yesterday, when I saw that he didn’t let go of the ball, but hit it, I thought, ‘He’s concentrating.