Casey Kelly (34-LG Twins) and Young-pyo Ko (32-KT Wiz) will start Game 1 of the best-of-seven KBO Korean Series (KS), the culmination of the 2023 fall baseball season.
LG manager Yoon Kyung-yeop and KT manager Lee Kang-cheol attended the Korean Series media day at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Saturday and announced Kelly and Ko Young-pyo as their starting pitchers for Game 1 of the KS.
Game 1 of the KS will be held at 6:30 p.m. on July 7 at the same venue.
Kelly is an established ace who has been on the LG mound since 2019.
Another foreign pitcher, Adam Plutko, left Korea after failing to overcome an injury, adding to the weight on his shoulders.
After winning 14 games in 2019, his first year in the KBO, Ko has won double-digit games in five straight years leading up to this year.
He struggled in the first half of the season, but his stuff picked up in the second half and he finished the year with a 10-7 record and a 3.83 ERA.
Kelly’s career KBO regular season record is 68-38 with a 3.08 ERA.
He also has plenty of experience in KBO Fall League baseball.
He pitched two games each in the wild-card decider, semi-playoffs, and playoffs, totaling a 3-1 record with a 2.23 ERA in six games.
After pitching five innings and two runs in Game 4 of the playoffs against the Kiwoom Heroes last year, Kelly had to watch his team get eliminated by KS.
He had a strong showing against KT.
In 14 career appearances against them, he has a 6-1 record with a 2.40 ERA.
This season, he struggled a bit against KT, going 1-1 with a 3.96 ERA in four games, but after regaining his form, he was brilliant in their last meeting on Sept. 27, going seven innings, striking out five and walking two.
After announcing Kelly as the Game 1 starter, Yoon said, “It was the same in the regular season, and he stepped up in preparation for the series. I think she’s going to be good. I hope Kelly will pitch well in game one.”
KT will be countered by Ko Young-pyo.
Ko, who was scheduled to attend the media day, was scratched from the roster a day before his start to prepare for the game.
Ko is KT’s domestic ace, going 12-7 with a 2.78 ERA in 28 regular-season games.
Out of those 28 starts, he was dominant on the mound with 21 quality starts (six or more innings and three earned runs or less).
Go has been misunderstood as ‘weak in big games’.
As a pitcher who throws long innings with a precise delivery rather than a fastball, he is not suitable for short-term games.
In the 2021 Korean Series, when KT won the franchise’s first overall title, he was pushed out of the starting lineup and appeared in only three games out of the bullpen.
This fall, however, has been different.
He started Game 3 of the playoffs against the NC Dinos on April 2 and pitched six innings of three-hit ball with two walks and five strikeouts to take the first step in KT’s magical “reverse sweep.
Submarine pitcher Ko Young-pyo struggled against the LG bats.
In four LG games this season, he has no wins and two losses, with an ERA of 7.36.
His career record with LG is 8-8 with a 4.65 ERA.
Ko was tasked with preventing LG’s vaunted “left-handed pitching.
Lee said, “This is the order of the rotation. I thought about making a surprise announcement, but I’m going to go with the order.” 토토사이트