Starter Connor Seabold tossed a complete game shutout as the Samsung Lions squeezed past the Kiwoom Heroes 1-0 in Seoul on Tuesday.
Seabold gave up just three singles while striking out a season-high 11 batters in a dominant performance in front of 14,421 fans at the 16,000-seat Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul.
It was just the fourth complete game shutout by a starting pitcher in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) this season.
With both Seabold and his counterpart, Enmanuel De Jesus, dealing on the mound, the teams traded zeroes for five innings. Then the Lions finally broke through in the top of the sixth inning.
After leading off the inning with an infield single, speedster Kim Ji-chan stole second base to get himself into scoring position. Then Yoon Jeong-bin drove him home with a single to right field.
Yoon had entered the game in the top fourth as pinch runner for Lewin Diaz, who was hit on the left wrist by a fastball from De Jesus.
Staked to a 1-0 lead, Seabold pitched around a leadoff single by Lee Ju-hyoung in the bottom sixth and retired the three most dangerous hitters for the Heroes in order.
First, Seabold got Kim Hye-seong to pop out to third. The right-hander then struck out Song Sung-mun and Choi Joo-hwan to keep the Lions up by a run.
Seabold didn’t give up another hit after that, retiring his final nine batters in order to finish what he started.
De Jesus was the hard-luck loser despite giving up just the one run in six strong innings while striking out five. It was his best outing against the Lions this year, 카지노 after allowing eight runs on 11 hits, including three home runs, in 10 1/3 innings across his previous two meetings against them.
Of Seabold’s 11 strikeouts, nine were of the swinging variety — six with a slider, two with a four-seam fastball and one with a changeup.
Prior to Tuesday, Seabold had a 1-3 record with a 7.08 ERA versus the Heroes, his worst mark against any opponent this year. At Gocheok Sky Dome in particular, Seabold had gone 1-1 with a 7.45 ERA before Tuesday