Daegu: Starting in a must-win postseason game against a dangerous opponent Monday, NC Dinos left-hander Koo Chang-mo delivered a strong outing that kept his team alive and proved that, when healthy, he can still be one of the top pitchers in South Korean baseball. Koo held the Samsung Lions to a run on five hits across six innings as the Dinos beat them 4-1 in the first game of the wild card round in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason at Daegu Samsung Lions Park in Daegu, 235 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
According to Yonhap News Agency, as the lower seed at No. 5, the Dinos had to win Monday to remain in the postseason and must win another game Tuesday at the same stadium to reach the next round. The fourth-seeded Lions only needed a tie Monday to advance and will take another crack Tuesday, after the offense that had produced a KBO-best 161 home runs and a .427 slugging percentage during the regular season was mostly kept in check.
Despite the diminished velocity, Koo leaned on his fastball-slider mix to induce plenty of soft contact. After allowing a leadoff single to Lee Jae-hyeon in the bottom of the first, Koo struck out the next batter and then got Koo Ja-wook to bounce into an inning-ending double play.
Koo Chang-mo got three groundouts in the second inning while pitching around a one-out double by Kim Young-woong. In the third inning, a two-out single by Lee amounted to nothing against Koo, who enjoyed his first three-up, three-down inning in the fourth. The only blemish in Koo's outing came in the form of Lee Sung-gyu's solo home run in the fifth, but the Dinos still led 4-1 after that blast and hung on to win by the same score.
The Lions' two biggest threats, Koo Ja-wook and Lewin Diaz, went a combined 0-for-6 against Koo Chang-mo. Diaz led the regular season with 50 home runs and a league-record 158 RBIs but looked overmatched while flailing at well-located fastballs and sliders from the left-hander.
Koo Chang-mo has had his promising career derailed by assorted injuries. He has been sidelined with elbow, shoulder, and forearm injuries over the past five years, the last two of which were spent completing his mandatory military service. Now 28, Koo is no longer a prospect, nor does he throw as hard as he once did. But in his most important start of the season Monday, Koo rose to the occasion with his longest outing since May 2023. The win was Koo's first in a postseason game since Game 5 of the Korean Series against the Doosan Bears in November 2020.