2004 Pro Baseball

Korea Baseball League is now in the age of civil war.

There are no absolute strong and no absolute weak teams, and league standings are alternating every day. The transfer of super free-agent players and the joining of foreign players have brought more equality than ever before.

Lotte stands in the center of the new trend. Lotte currently places eighth, but is only four games behind second place, LG. Lotte can move forward anytime if they win games consecutively. Lotte has 20 wins, five draws and 24 losses to reach almost a .500 winning percentage with .455. It is the first time that a last place team has had as high a winning percentage since 2001’s Lotte. (.457). Although Lotte is now in last place, it can’t be looked down on.

Lotte has matched Kia with three wins, one draw and four losses this season, while Lotte had one win, one draw and 17 losses against Kia last year. Lotte remains predominant over Hanhwa, with six wins and three losses, and Doosan, with four wins and two losses.

Lotte manager, Yang Sang-moon says confidently, “We can have confidence against any team because of our good balance in batting, fielding and pitching.”

The Hanhwa Eagles, which hide their beaks facing Lotte, play fun with Samsung. Hanhwa has six wins, two draws and one loss against Samsung to reach a winning percentage of .857. It is a lot higher than the seasonal winning percentage of .478.

But Samsung had 17 wins and two losses over Lotte last year, which Hanhwa is scared of, and is dominant over Lotte with four wins, one draw and one loss this season, too. The three of them are eating each other like members of a food chain.

Samsung has four wins and two losses against Kia, which is the former team of manager Kim Eung-ryong, just as if he was granted the privileges of his former post. They broke their shameful 10-game losing streak in a home game against Kia this year.

Moving backwards with three consecutive losses recently, league-leading Hyundai has dominated “rivals using same stadium,” LG and Doosan. Hyundai has four wins and two losses against LG, and six wins and two losses against Doosan for 10 out of its 28 wins.

Doosan tops LG with 5 wins, 2 losses to wield power over LG in the same stadium. LG manager, Lee Soon-cheol said, “Our players seem to have pressure with Doosan.”

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com