*This content was translated by AI.
There was one more baseball fan who was happy about the Korean national baseball team's advance to the quarterfinals of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) for the first time in 17 years. It was Austin Dean (33, LG Twins), a blue-eyed foreign hitter nicknamed "Jamsil Oh" by fans who looked more Korean than Koreans.
On the 9th, Austin posted a picture of Moon Bo-kyung and the result of South Korea's 7-2 victory over Australia on his SNS, saying, "Moon Bo-kyung is the best legend. Celebrated with the phrase "Proud My Brother".
It's because of the dramatic game that took place earlier. The South Korean national team, led by head coach Ryu Ji-hyun (55), beat Australia 7-2 in the final Group C match of the first round of the 2026 WBC finals at Tokyo Dome in Japan to confirm its advance to the second round (eight-finals) for the first time in 17 years.
It was a dramatic game. Before the match, South Korea had the most unfavorable conditions compared to Australia, which had a 2-1 record, and Taiwan, which had a 2-2 record. South Korea had to win Australia by five points with less than two runs due to the WBC's first-round ranking rule, which determines the winner's win, minimum run rate, and minimum earned run rate among teams with tied wins.
However, Moon Bo-kyung (26), LG's proud "Moon Treasure," served as a solution, giving Korea a breather. Moon Bo-kyung fired a two-run shot against his teammate and Australian starting pitcher Lachlan Wells at first base with no outs in the top of the second inning. The ball, which flew at 108.7 miles per hour (about 174.9 kilometers) per hour, hit the stands 430 feet (about 131 meters) over.
It wasn't the end here. With South Korea leading 3-0 with one out and second base in the top of the third inning, Moon Bo-kyung hit Mitch Nunborn's third pitch and hit an RBI double to right-center. In the top of the fifth inning, he hit a large RBI timely hit over the left field height with two outs and a runner on the second base, making his fourth RBI in three consecutive hits.
With this RBI, Kim Tae-kyun set the record for the most RBIs in a single WBC tournament by a Korean player in 2006. Thanks to this, Korea was able to continue its hope by maintaining a four-point lead in the fifth and eighth innings.
It was also Moon Bo-kyung who bought a ticket to Miami for the quarterfinals. First, South Korea has a dramatic five-point victory requirement with Ahn Hyun-min's sacrifice fly RBI in the top of the ninth inning. Subsequently, right fielder Lee Jung-hoo's fantastic diving catch in the bottom of the ninth inning with one out and one on the first base left only one last out count. First baseman Moon Bo-kyung caught Logan Wade missing Cho Byung-hyun's third pitch and decided the game.
Moon Bo-kyung, who had three hits in five at-bats (one home run) and four RBIs, was naturally selected as the official MVP of the game. It was the moment when LG's literary treasure was upgraded to a treasure of Korea. In addition, Moon Bo-kyung ranked No. 1 in RBIs in the WBC tournament with 11 RBIs until the 9th. The record for the most RBIs in a single WBC tournament is 13 RBIs recorded by Japan's Masataka Yoshida (Boston Red Sox) in the 2023 tournament.
With this, South Korea will head to Miami, the U.S., where the second round will be held in second place in Group C after Japan, which won all three games. The last time Korea advanced to the second round of the WBC was in 2009 when it tasted the glory of being the runner-up. On the first quarter-final stage in 17 years, South Korea will play an inevitable single-round match against the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, which is likely to rank first in Group D, at 7:30 a.m. on the 13th (Korea Standard Time).
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*This content was translated by AI.
