In the semi-playoffs held in a single season in history, the 3rd place team defeated the bottom team and advanced to the playoffs 16 times out of 32 times (not held in 1995) until this year, which is 50%.

It can be seen that there is no significant advantage to the team ranked ahead. After 2015, when the wild card match was held, I thought it would be advantageous for the 3rd place team, but that was not the case.짱구카지노

This year, NC Dinos had 5 wild cards and 3rd place teams 4 times, so more wild cards made it to the playoffs. It is not absolutely advantageous to move up to semi-PO in 3rd place and wait.

The same goes for the playoffs. In a total of 32 playoffs held in a single season since 1989, the second-place team won and advanced to the Korean Series 16 times. Exactly 50%. Only half made it to the Korean Series. This means that the semi-PO winning team also has a 50% chance.

Since 2015, when the wild card game was held, there have been only three cases where the second-place team advanced to the Korean Series, and there were more semi-PO winning teams (five times). In particular, the second-place team was eliminated from the playoffs for four consecutive years from 2019 to last year. KT also ranked second for the first time in 2020 and went straight to the playoffs, but was eliminated by Doosan with 1 win and 3 losses. Last year, 3rd place Kiwoom, who defeated KT in the semi-PO, advanced to the Korean Series with 3 consecutive wins after losing 1 game to 2nd place LG Twins.

It is certainly strange that the second-place team often loses to the semi-PO winning team that comes up after playing the game even though it clearly has enough rest.

There have been 14 cases in history where the team advanced through the semi-PO of the best-of-five series and made the playoffs, and among them, the second-place team won nine times, raising the winning rate to 64.3%.

The only time a team went from semi-PO in a best-of-five series to PO with three consecutive wins was in 2008 when 4th place Samsung beat 3rd place Lotte. At this time, the playoffs were held in a best-of-seven format, and second-place Doosan went from 1 win and 2 losses to three consecutive wins, defeating Samsung and advancing to the Korean Series. NC has won three games in a row for the second time, making the match against KT more interesting. Because it ended with three consecutive wins, NC got four days of rest. Sure-to-win pitchers such as Kim Young-gyu, Ryu Jin-wook, and Lee Yong-chan, who pitched in three consecutive games, were able to get a solid rest, and foreign pitcher Tanner, who performed poorly in both the wild card game and the semi-PO, was able to receive mental and physical reinforcement through rest. In particular, the biggest plus factor is that Eric Peddy, the best pitcher in the 2023 season who had not been able to pitch since he was hit in the arm by a batted ball, was able to start in the first game.

KT also enters the playoffs with a clear physical advantage given that it had a break similar to that of the Korean Series. KT finished the season with a home game against Doosan on the 10th. And with the first round of the playoffs held on the 30th, there was a total break of 19 days. If the season had ended on the 17th like other teams, they would have rested for about 12 days before making the playoffs, but they would have rested a week longer than that. It is expected that the pitchers will be able to show even better pitches because they have had enough rest.

KT’s older infielders, including Park Byeong-ho (37), Park Kyung-soo (39), Hwang Jae-gyun (36), and Kim Sang-soo (33), clearly recovered physically after about three weeks of rest. Park Byung-ho had difficulty running bases due to a calf injury, but now he is 100% capable of running bases.

Only Kim Min-hyuk, who suffered a thigh muscle injury while playing defense at the end of the season, is able to hit but is having trouble running the bases.

Will KT break the ‘curse of second place’ and pull off a miracle of rising from last place to the Korean Series? Or will NC, which was a strong candidate for last place this year, become a miracle team that beats all the strong teams and makes it to the Korean Series?