*This content was translated by AI.
The 2026 KBO League has opened. From the first two consecutive games, there was a series of last-minute reversals. It was painful for the losing team, but it gave the winning team and its fans an unforgettable thrill. Should it be viewed as a "low-quality baseball" of pitchers who caused a come-from-behind loss by exaggerating their balls, or should it be called a "great match" of fun explosions.
Of the 10 games held over the past two days, five came from behind. Among them, four games, except for the Daejeon Hanwha-Kium match on the 29th, scored the winning point at the end of the game after the eighth inning.
In the opening game on the 28th, SSG won a thrilling walk-off victory in the ninth inning against KIA and Hanwha in the 11th inning against Kiwoom, respectively. From the perspective of the losing team, KIA suffered a shocking defeat in the bottom of the ninth inning when Jung Hae-young allowed three runs with two hits and one walk, followed by Cho Sang-woo, who took the mound, allowing two walks and one hit. Kiwoom scored two runs in the top of the 11th inning, but Yuto, who took the mound in the bottom of the 11th inning, gave up a timely hit to Moon Hyun-bin, Roh Si-hwan and Kang Baek-ho after two outs.
On the 29th, KT won the come-from-behind winning run in the ninth inning against LG and Doosan in the eighth inning against NC. LG dedicated the winning run to Kim Hyun-soo with a ground ball in front of left field (first baseman Choi Won-joon was forced out at second base) in the top of the ninth inning when Yoo Young-chan hit consecutive hits. NC missed its opening two consecutive games in the top of the eighth inning with a 6-4 lead, as Kim Jin-ho hit a tiebreaking two-run shot by Cameron and Son Joo-hwan hit an upset three-run home run by Kim Min-seok.
Among the relief pitchers, there were cases where they threw balls one after another as soon as they took the mound, causing a crisis. The total number of pitches in the 10 games was 116, or 11.6 per game. It was more than three more than last year's final 8.2 (5,929/720 games). Critics say that bullpen pitchers, who have to prevent the crisis and protect the victory, failed to score a strike properly and lowered the level of the game by playing "ball ball ball ball" one after another.
However, it can be evaluated differently from the perspective of the winning team. Until the end of the game, hitters showed their ability to turn the game around without losing their concentration. On the 28th, Hanwha's Noh Si-hwan and Kang Baek-ho, who had no hits earlier, did their part at a decisive moment. On the 29th, Cameron, a new foreign hitter who came out as a pinch hitter, and Kim Min-seok, who had only four home runs for three years since their debut, hit a dramatic home run. It was enough to give the two team benches and fans more than one win of hope and pride.
Not all bullpen pitchers have shown turbulence. KT Park Young-hyun earned a scoreless save for two consecutive days, and Doosan's Kim Taek-yeon also took the mound after two outs in the eighth inning and neatly harvested a four-out save. Lotte's Kim Won-joong and Hanwha's Jung Woo-joo, who were sluggish in the opening game, relieved concerns by allowing no runs the next day.
There were not many mistakes, one of the measures of baseball level. Doosan made only four errors at once in the opening game, and a total of 12 errors (1.2 per game) were made in 10 games. It was less than 1.48 (1,063, 720 games) last year.
It is true that as Korean baseball has recently performed poorly on the international stage, critics have criticized it as a "frog in the well" and a "league of its own." Of course, as revealed in the last WBC (World Baseball Classic), pitchers' control and batters' decision-making power need to be improved in order to strengthen the international competitiveness of Korean baseball. However, the U.S. or Japanese media and fans of advanced baseball do not criticize it as "low-quality baseball" just because the game is overturned by bullpen pitchers' difficulties at the end of the game.
Last weekend, the professional baseball stadium was full of spectators. A total of 211,756 people entered the five stadiums, the third-highest number ever after 2025 (219,900) and 2019 (214,324). As of Saturday to Sunday, all games were sold out for the second time after last year. There were only a few thousand differences depending on the number of spectators at the stadium where the opening home game was held.
An official from a club said this. "My friend's cheering team lost the opening game on the first day. Nevertheless, he was happy, saying, "I can watch baseball tomorrow." This fan spirit is the power of 10 million spectators for the second consecutive year and the charm of "K-baseball."
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*This content was translated by AI.
