KIA Tigers’ Woo-hyuk Byun (24) hit dramatic back-to-back home runs to lead the team to an escape from a three-game losing streak.
Woo-hyuk Byun started as the 7th batter and first baseman in the game against Kiwoom Heroes held at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on the 28th in the ‘2024 Shinhan Bank SOL Bank KBO League’, and had 2 hits, 1 home run, 1 RBI, and 1 run in 4 at-bats.
Woo-hyuk Byun, who adjusted his batting feel by hitting a double with one out in the fifth inning, hit a 136 km/h fastball from Kiwoom’s left-handed closing pitcher Seong-min Kim over the left-center field fence with two outs in the top of the ninth inning after Seon-bin Kim’s solo home run tied the score at 3-3. It was his second home run of the season. KIA won 4-3 on the back of Byun Woo-hyuk’s game-winning home run, ending their three-game losing streak.
Byun Woo-hyuk said in a post-game interview, “I was aiming for changeups throughout the game today. I didn’t even hit a fastball down the middle, so I think it was obvious. The other team thought I was aiming for changeups, but I thought the opposite and aimed for fastballs from the first pitch. Thanks to senior (Kim) Sun-bin tying the game, I was able to aim for fastballs on the first pitch without any pressure.”
KIA has recently lost three games in a row, allowing second-place LG to catch up. The game gap with second-place LG was seven games until the 24th, but with LG not having many games due to rainouts, KIA lost three games in a row, reducing the gap to five games. However, with KIA winning and LG losing on this day, the gap widened to six games. KIA has 60 wins, 2 draws, and 38 losses, a winning percentage of .612, while LG has 53 wins, 2 draws, and 43 losses, a winning percentage of .552.
The game between KIA and Kiwoom on this day was the only game held during the day. As a result, when the game ended, the game between LG and Hanwha had just started. Nevertheless, Byun Woo-hyuk showed that he was conscious of LG during the interview, asking about the results of LG’s game. “I’m conscious of LG because they won last year,” Byun Woo-hyuk said with a smile, adding, “There are teams like KT that are coming up from the bottom. So we also know that we can’t let our guard down until the end. We’re trying not to let our guard down. There’s no way we won without pressure. We were caught once in the first half, and there were cases like Doosan (who won the championship after coming from a 9-game deficit in 2019). There are still a lot of games left, so honestly, I think the second-place team can catch us. So we can’t let our guard down,” he said, emphasizing that we must do our best until the championship is confirmed.
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