KIA Declares All-Out Effort in Bid for Third Place Against LG; Manager: "Treat It as a Short Series" — Starting Lineup Revealed, 'Kim Do-young at No. 2' [Jamsil On-Site]

*This content was translated by AI.

Can the KIA Tigers truly climb to third place? The manager has declared an all-out effort. The starting lineup for the first game of the decisive three-game series was revealed.

KIA will play an away regular-season game against LG in the 2026 Shinhan SOL KBO League at Seoul Jamsil Baseball Stadium at 2 p.m. on the 3rd.

KIA currently sits alone in fourth place in the league with a record of 72 wins, 61 losses, and 2 ties this season.

KIA aims to reverse the standings in this three-game series. The gap between them and third-place LG (75 wins, 60 losses, 1 tie) is only two games. If KIA wins all three games, they will overtake LG by one game to move into third place. Even with a record of two wins and one loss, they can closely trail LG by just one game.

For this game, KIA set their starting lineup in the following order: Park Jae-hyun (left fielder), Kim Do-young (second baseman), Castro (first baseman), Na Seong-beom (designated hitter), Kim Sun-bin (second baseman), Park Jeong-woo (right fielder), Kim Ho-ryeong (center fielder), Kim Tae-goon (catcher), and Kim Gyu-seong (shortstop).

The starting pitcher is James Neal. Neal has appeared in 29 games this season, recording a 12-7 record with an ERA of 3.45. Against LG this season, he posted a 1-1 record with an ERA of 3.97 over two games. He pitched a total of 11⅓ innings, allowing 11 hits, issuing 2 walks, hitting 3 batters, striking out 10, and giving up 5 runs (5 earned).

Ahead of the game, KIA manager Lee Beom-ho met with reporters and discussed placing Kim Do-young in the No. 2 spot: "I placed him in the second batting order to give him as many at-bats as possible. We have to score somehow. Castro's and (Na) Seong-beom's condition is not bad right now. Since the opposing pitcher is good, I wanted to place our most capable hitters up front. It doesn't look like we will score a lot of runs, so I thought the endgame would come down to a bullpen battle. To get at least one more run, I tried moving players up one spot each."

The manager then added, "There is always a feeling that something gets cut off in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots. (Park) Jeong-woo's condition was good, but it seems to have dropped a bit," smiling as he said, "I tried putting our best hitter in the No. 1 spot." He continued, "We need to see what happens if we get good momentum from the No. 1 and No. 2 spots and carry it down the order. Right now, with our good hitters up front, we have to keep finding ways to win games. We will approach this as a short series," reaffirming his resolve.

The manager also stated, "If we go 2-1 in this series against LG, the home game against LG next week, which is the final game of that week, could be seen as the decisive moment. However, if we fall behind this time, I think it will become a bit difficult."

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*This content was translated by AI.