At this point, I think it's a chronic disease. At an important match point, it collapses due to errors, and the bullpen sets fire to it in a tight match. The Lotte Giants again destroyed themselves with their disappointing performance, reducing hope for fall baseball.안전놀이터

Lotte lost 3-5 at home to the LG Twins of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League held at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan on Sunday. The seventh-ranked Lotte (62 wins, 4 draws and 69 losses, 0.473) that ended its three-game winning streak lost to the Samsung Lions on the same day lost to the fifth-ranked KT Wiz (68 wins, 2 draws and 68 losses, 0.500 wins) and maintained a gap of 3.5 games.

The game was staged as a tight race between the starting pitchers of the two teams. Lotte starter Kim Jin-wook overcame the crisis of losing points several times, including runners on the first and second bases with no outs in the second inning, and runners on the first and third innings with no outs in the third inning, and performed his part by allowing three hits, three walks, and seven strikeouts in six innings. LG starter Lim Chan-kyu also displayed good pitching by allowing seven hits, one walk, four strikeouts and one run in six ⅓ innings.

Lotte scored first on offense in the bottom of the third inning. With one out, Park Seung-wook's walk and Cho In-geun's hit made chances for the first and second bases. Hwang was out after hitting a fly ball to the right field, but Ko Seung-min, who showed off his strong batting performance by recording a "cycling hit" on the previous day, hit a timely hit to left to take a 1-0 lead.

Ko Seung-min, the leading RBI single, put Kim Jin-wook in danger with an error in the top of the fifth inning. He failed to catch leadoff hitter Park Hae-min's hit at once, allowing him to get on base. After treating Koo with a fly ball to the center field, Kim was hit by a double by Hong Chang-ki, which put him on the brink of collapse with one out and runners on the second and third bases. Kim Jin-wook, who handled Austin Dean with a fly ball to the first baseman, gave up a walk to Kim Bum-suk, but blocked Moon Bo-kyung with a ground ball to the first baseman, and met the requirement to become a winning pitcher without allowing a run.

Lotte lost its 1-0 lead in the eighth inning, which it maintained until the seventh inning. Kim Sang-soo, who took the mound in the top of the eighth inning, allowed Moon Bo-kyung to hit a tying solo shot after hitting a 127 km/h slider at the first pitch. It was the moment when Kim Jin-wook, who pitched six scoreless innings, lost his victory.

Kim Sang-soo, who handled Park Dong-won with a fly ball to the second baseman, sent out a runner after being hit by Oh Ji-hwan. Lotte's "faulty" time bomb exploded at once when the next batter, Lee Young-bin, was at the batter's box. When Oh Ji-hwan, the first baseman, attempted to steal a slider at the time when the ball count was falling to the lowest point at 1-2, catcher Cho In-geun grabbed the ball and threw it to the second base right away. However, the throw was so missed that both the shortstop and the second baseman who were entering the cover ball, and the ball flew to the center field.

Another error was made here. Yoon Dong-hee's throw, which tried to block Oh Ji-hwan's advance to third base, missed and entered the LG dugout. In the end, Oh Ji-hwan homered comfortably with the safety base, allowing Lotte to come from behind 1-2 times. The catcher and center fielder committed a series of throwing errors and wasted no time dedicating the come-from-behind score.

Lotte, which cleared the top of the eighth inning without additional runs, tied the game 2-2 again in the bottom of the eighth inning when leadoff hitter Son Ho-young hit Kim Jin-sung's first pitch 123km/h folk ball.

However, he was only briefly happy. Kim Won-joong, who took the mound in the top of the ninth inning, had a shaky start after being hit hard by leadoff hitter Park Hae-min. Kim also had a hit, causing crisis with runners on the first and second bases with no outs, and allowed Hong to come from behind at 2-3 due to timely hit.

This was not the end of his career. With runners on the first and third bases with no outs, Kim gave up a sacrifice fly RBI by hitting a fly ball to center field to Austin. After giving up two runs while catching an out count, Kim handed over the mound to Na Gyun-an. Na took the mound with one out and runners on the first and third bases after a hit by Kim Min-soo, and Moon Bo-kyung's grounder to the second base did not lead to a double play, allowing runners to score runs on the third base.

Lotte, which entered the final attack in the bottom of the ninth inning with the score spread to 2-5, took a chance at the first and second bases with Park Seung-wook and Junghoon Lee getting straight walks from Yoo Young-chan. With pinch hitter Jung-hoon striking out and Ko Seung-min stepping down to the third base groundout, Son Ho-young struck out with a swing and miss in three pitches, but the third baseman homered and recovered one point while he was not out due to wild pitches. With the following one out and runners on the first and second bases, Lotte had to suffer the bitterness of its 3-5 defeat as the last batter Victor Reyes stepped down as a pitcher groundout.

Since entering the postseason as the third-ranked team in the regular season in 2017, Lotte has been hovering at the bottom of the standings since 2018 at 7-10-7-8-7. In recent seasons, Lotte has often given hope advice to Lotte fans as it skidded due to lack of hindsight after competing for the last round of five in the second half of the season.

After a rollercoaster ride this year, Lotte is continuing its hope for the fall baseball season at the end of this season. However, in an important situation, mistakes have collapsed on their own and the back door is wide open, often being defeated repeatedly. This season, Lotte has recorded 120 errors (137 for No. 1 Kia Tigers), the second largest number in the league, of which 22 errors were made in 15 games in September alone. Of the 15 games, only two had no errors, revealing its sense of instability in defense.

The bullpen, which seemed to be recovering, is also on shaky ground at the end of the season. The bullpen session, which led the team's advancement by ranking second overall in the league with an ERA of 3.94 in August, collapsed again with an ERA of 6.93 (ranking ninth) in September. Lotte's Tim BlonSave is tied with the Samsung Lions for the first place this season with the 25th inning. According to Statistics, the baseball statistics website, Lotte's bullpen session has the lowest lead percentage (72.3 percent), far below the league average of 79.1 percent.

Lotte can barely match the winning rate of 50 percent if it secures eight wins and one loss in the remaining nine games. On the other hand, the fifth-ranked KT has a winning rate of 50 percent if it secures three wins and three losses in six games and six wins and three losses in nine games of the sixth-ranked SSG Landers (65 wins, two draws and 68 losses). The team has only one more chance to narrow its gap by playing against KT, and SSG has lost its opponent (6 wins, one draw and nine losses), which has lowered its chance of reaching the semi-finals in many ways. Lotte, which repeatedly suffered self-destruction due to chronic errors and firestorms in the bullpen whenever it could revive hope, is on the verge of ending up as a hope torture again this year.