Facing KBO postseason elimination, Tigers move up sluggers in new-look lineup

GWANGJU — On the brink of elimination from the South Korean baseball postseason, the Kia Tigers put together a much different lineup Friday than the ones from their earlier games.

The Tigers are trailing the Samsung Lions 2-1 in the best-of-five series in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), having dropped two straight games after winning the first game Monday. The winner of this series will advance to the Korean Series starting next week.

Manager Lee Bum-ho moved up his top three sluggers a spot each — with Kim Do-yeong batting second, Harold Castro batting third and Na Sung-bum in the cleanup spot against starter Chris Paddack.

The Tigers have received almost nothing from the No. 2 spot, which has been occupied by different players in all three games so far. They have batted a combined 1-for-12.

Kim is leading the Tigers in this series with five hits, including a home run.

With Paddack pitching on three days’ rest after losing Game 1, Lee said he wanted to lean on players who already saw the American pitcher in that opening game.

Paddack was charged with the loss after allowing five runs on five hits, including two home runs, in 4 2/3 innings. Castro and Han Jun-su, who moved up from the No. 7 to No. 6 spot, had the home runs.

“Throughout the series, I feel like our offense has stopped flowing whenever we got to the No. 2 spot,” Lee said in his pregame media availability. “This could be our last game of the year, and we can no longer afford to wait for a turnaround. So we moved some guys up in the lineup.”

Park Jae-hyun will bat leadoff for the third straight game. A major spark plug in the regular season, Park is mired in a 2-for-13 slump in this series.

One of those hits came in his final at-bat in Thursday’s game, which Lee found encouraging.

“He has to come alive to give our offense a new dimension, and it will force opposing pitchers to pitch to our sluggers differently,” Lee said. “I think the hit he got last night should help him settle down mentally for today’s game.”

No matter who is batting where, Lee said they will have to get to Paddack early and often.

Paddack threw 94 pitches Monday and is starting on short rest for the first time this year.

“I suppose they will not ask him to go all that long, but I think he will still have his good stuff for the first three or four innings,” Lee said. “The key for us is to knock him around early. Just because we had some success against him in the first game, it would be too arrogant of us to assume that we will do it again today. I thought he had great stuff in Game 1, and it was only the guys in the middle of the lineup that managed to get hits off of him.”

Lions manager Park Jin-man said there will be no pitch count restriction on Paddack, though the coaching staff will check on the pitcher’s condition after every inning.

“He told us he feels great, and he is fired up for an opportunity to get his revenge. I hope he does just that,” Park said. “I was a little surprised to see the Tigers’ lineup. But we have been successful in keeping runners off the board in front of Kim Do-yeong, and I believe our pitchers know how to take care of business.”

Park has not had to do much shuffling after his lineup pounded out nine hits in Game 2 and 10 hits in Game 3. One change saw third baseman Kim Young-woong returning to the starting lineup.

They were kept in check by Kia starter James Naile in their 5-1 loss in Game 1, managing just one hit off the right-hander in 4 1/3 innings before the pitcher was automatically ejected for hitting a batter in the head with a fastball. The Lions got only one other hit after Naile was gone, and that was an RBI single by Kim Young-woong.

Park predicted things will be much different for his team Friday.

“I think our players felt the pressure of trying to win the first game at home,” he said. “But we have some positive momentum behind us now, and the vibe is different than the first game. I hope we put up some big numbers on the board today.”