Kim Byung-hyun 9th Victory "Better than Starter"

Kim Byung-hyun (24•Boston Redsox)reduced the magic number for his team for wild card advancing to 2, continuing no earned runs for 12 consecutive games.

In the home game against Baltimore held at Boston Fan Way Park on the 24th. A dramatic game was presented, and Kim was standing in the center.

Boston was trailing 2-5 with sign of certain defeat, and Todd Walker hit a 3 run homerun to tie the game at the bottom of 9th inning with runners on 1st and 3rd base. Boston manager Grady Little expected victory, and Kim was called on the mound immediately at the top of 10th inning.

Kim settled the first batter BJ Surhoff with fly to the right fielder and struck out Louis Matos who hit a 2 run homer at the top of 1st inning. Kim allowed a hit to Jack Cust and three 3 balls to Brook Fordyce to face a crisis, but the result was a grounder to the 2nd baseman.

Boston batter Ortis hit a homerun at the bottom of 10th inning that finished the game, and Kim added a victory.

Kim Byung-hyun marked his most wins since debut (9 wins, 10 losses and 16 saves). He threw 13 strikes among his 20 pitches, and his ERA lowered from 3.27 to 3.22.

Boston marked 93 wins and 64 losses with the victory this day and broadened the difference in the number of games won with Seattle (90 wins 68 losses) to 3.5. Boston will get the American League wild card ticket if it wins only 2 games in the 5 games left.

Meanwhile, New York Yankees and Minnesota confirmed division champion. The Yankees beat Chicago Whitesox 7-and marked 98 wins and 59 losses, achieving division champion for 6 consecutive years. Yankees will mark a tie with Boston if it loses all 5 games left and Boston wins all 5 games, but confirmed champion since the record against Boston is 10-9. (wins, losses)

Minnesota defeated Cleveland 4-1 and got its title for 2 consecutive years with Whitesox and Kansas City losing their games.

Hwan-Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com