SEOUL-- With his club sitting a win away from winning the South Korean baseball championship, KT Wiz manager Lee Kang-chul said Thursday he won't do anything that might jinx the team.

The Wiz lead the Doosan Bears 3-0 in the best-of-seven Korean Series, with Game 4 scheduled for Thursday evening at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. The Wiz have never once trailed in any game so far in the series and, save for a couple of jams, have not been seriously threatened, either.

But Lee said at his pregame press conference that things haven't been as easy as they have seemed on the outside.

"I used to think getting to three wins first would make my life easy, but now that we're here, I feel like getting that one last win will be quite difficult," Lee said. "I didn't go through these emotions as a player. I am just trying to stay calm."

Asked if his players had any special plans to celebrate their championship on the field, Lee said he has never been one to get ahead of himself.

"I've never asked my players, and I used to hate talking about those things even as a player," Lee said. "Personally, I am not a fan of discussing celebrations beforehand."

For the same reason, Lee refused to bump fists with his Game 1 starting pitcher, William Cuevas, after taking him out of the game in the eighth inning. Cuevas had to wait until after the Wiz closed out a 4-2 win to celebrate with his skipper.

"Whenever I did something like that, we ended up losing," Lee added.

Lee will be without veteran second baseman Park Kyung-su, who suffered torn right calf muscle during Wednesday's Game 3 and will miss the rest of the series, no matter how much longer it goes.

Park hurt himself while trying to catch a flyball in the eighth inning. Lee regretted not taking him out after Park drew a walk in the seventh inning, knowing that the infielder was playing with some lingering pain in his legs.

Lee said the rest of the Wiz will rally around Park, who had made some excellent plays at second base and hit his first career postseason home run Wednesday before his injury. Park was playing in his first Korean Series in his 19-year career.

Yoo Han-joon, the Wiz's oldest player at 40, also said he wants to win the title for the fallen teammate.

"I saw him on crutches, and it broke my heart," Yoo said. "If we want his story to really mean something, we should win tonight and wrap this up."

Earlier in the day, Bears' manager Kim Tae-hyoung sounded almost resigned to his team's fate. No club has ever rallied from a 3-0 deficit in the Korean Series.

There's plenty of blame to go around for the Bears' three straight losses, but Kim said he hoped his players wouldn't be so stressed out because he, as their manager, was ready to shoulder all the responsibility for not winning the championship.

After all, this is a record seventh consecutive trip to the Korean Series for the Bears.

"I think guys who have been here before feel a ton of pressure because they know how much they'll be criticized for underperforming," Kim said. "I just want them to know they've already done a great job getting to this point for seven straight years. A lot of us thought our streak would end after last season, but we're back here again. That's a great accomplishment already."

The team's third baseman, Heo Kyoung-min, said he was also proud of the Bears' Korean Series streak.

"I think it's going to be a tough record to break. And from the oldest guy down to the youngest rookie in our clubhouse, we all want to play at least one more game," Heo said. "Honestly, it's been difficult to read some of the articles written about us. But we just want our fans to know that we are all doing our best and we want to play well."

Source: Yonhap News Agency