Daegu: Starting in a must-win postseason game against a dangerous opponent, 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.

According to Yonhap News Agency, 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.

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 now 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 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 he 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.

"I am so happy to be the winning pitcher in such a critical game," Koo said after being named the Player of the Game. "This win was a total team effort. I was nervous going into this type of game. Our season would have ended with a loss. But after a while, I started enjoying this atmosphere and I decided to have a little fun on the mound."

Koo's fastball mostly sat in the low 140s in kilometers per hour but he said he didn't need to throw hard in this game. "I had a lot of first-pitch strikes and put myself in good situations early," he said. "That helped me finish up innings quickly."

Koo admitted he was worried about the Lions' home run-hitting prowess, with the Daegu stadium also being the most hitter-friendly park in the KBO, but ultimately, he trusted his stuff. "I tried to be aggressive, thinking that if I could just execute my pitches, good results will follow," Koo said.