NC Dinos, the ‘Dinosaur Legion’, remained undefeated in the postseason and secured a PO Game 1 victory.

NC won Game 1 of the ‘2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO Postseason‘ against KT at Katie Weeds Park in Suwon, South Korea, on Tuesday, 9-5, behind a one-hit shutout by specialty ace Pedi and an explosive batting lineup.

NC now has a 78.1 percent chance of advancing to the Korean Series. Until last year, the best-of-five playoffs had a whopping 78.1 percent (25 out of 32) chance of advancing to the Korean Series for the winner of Game 1.

“Pedi pitched well as expected, and the batters scored a lot of runs as they were focused on every opportunity,” said NC coach Kang Myung-ho in a postgame interview after the first game, “I’m grateful that Pedi pitched well regardless of his injury. We’ll see how the injury affects him after he pitches today.”

The only concern was the bullpen, which gave up the game-winning home run in the final inning. “I’m worried about the bullpen,” Kang said. If Kim Si-hoon could have closed the game cleanly in that situation, we would have had more time to operate the mound, but the finish was bad. However, Kim Si-hoon has strengths against KT, so we will use him as much as possible to suit the situation.”

On how he plans to use Son, who has been swinging the bat in the postseason, he said, “It’s true that my hitting drops off when I’m playing defense, so I’m focusing on what he does best. I think it’s right to use him in situations where Park Gun-woo is not overexerting himself as much as possible.” “However, if Park Gun-woo’s fatigue builds up or he feels uncomfortable, I think he should play defense,” he explained.

On the other hand, head coach KT Lee Kang-cheol also blamed the inability to target Pedi for the loss.

“We had a good pitcher. We lost the initiative in the early innings and gave away the momentum,” he said.

Regarding the bullpen, he said, “I thought we could have won the game if we had closed the fourth inning well. We also took into consideration that the game was slowing down. We tried to keep it under 20,” he said of Cuevas, who gave up seven 카지노 runs (four earned) on six hits in three innings, “I think I tried to pitch too well. I think he tried to throw too hard in the first inning.”

The lone bright spot came in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs. Lee added, “It’s a good thing that we ended the game with a run-scoring home run and a good showing.”