A tarp is placed over the infield at Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark in the central city of Daejeon ahead of Game 1 of the second-round series in the Korea Baseball Organization postseason between the Hanwha Eagles and the Samsung Lions on Friday. (Yonhap)
The opening game of the new Korea Baseball Organization postseason series between the Hanwha Eagles and the Samsung Lions was rained out Friday.
The first game of this best-of-five second-round series was to begin at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Eagles’ home, Daejeon Hanwha Life Ballpark in the central city of Daejeon. However, clear skies gave way to showers around 5 p.m., prompting the ground crew to bring out the tarp.
Then at 6:28 p.m., the league announced the postponement of the game to 2 p.m. Saturday.
This is the third game of this postseason to be affected by rainy weather.
The winner of this series will advance to the Korean Series against the top seed LG Twins. The start of the championship round has also been pushed back from Oct. 25 to Oct. 26.
As the fourth seed, the Lions had to win the wild card round over the NC Dinos and then beat the SSG Landers in four games in the next stage to reach the second round. The Eagles, who had the second-best record in the regular season, earned a bye to the second round. They haven’t played since their final regular-season game on Oct. 3.
The Eagles said they will stick to right-hander Cody Ponce as their starter for Saturday’s game.
Ponce is a strong regular-season MVP candidate after winning the Triple Crown in his first KBO season. The right-hander led the league with 17 wins, a 1.89 ERA and a league-record 252 strikeouts. Ponce also lost just one game and set the record for the longest winning streak by a pitcher from the start of a season with 17.
The Lions will send right-hander Gerson Garabito to the mound Saturday, as they had planned to do so for Friday.
Garabito joined the Lions in June to replace Denyi Reyes in the rotation. In 15 starts, the right-hander went 4-4 with a 2.64 ERA, and he struck out 84 in 78 1/3 innings.
He threw two scoreless outings against the Eagles during the regular season. He held them to one hit over five shutout innings in his KBO debut on June 26 and then scattered five singles over six scoreless frames against the same team on July 29. (Yonhap)
