  Van den Hurk finishes Korean season with win
Nederlands
 DAEJON (South Korea) -
In his last start of the regular season for Samsung Lions, Dutch pitcher Rick van den Hurk threw seven good innings and was the winning pitcher in an 8-2 win vs. Hanwha Eagles tonight (Tuesday, October 1) in Daejon.
...Rick van den Hurk...
(© Photo: Samsung Lions) |
The Lions are currently in first place of the Korea Baseball Organization with a 74-50 record and two ties.
The team has two games left in the regular season.
When it closes the season in first place, it will automatically qualify for the Korean Series, the best-of-seven championship final.
Qualification for the final also means that the team will not play for at least two weeks, before the first game is scheduled.
In the weeks before the Korean Series, there are first two Play-Off round to be played.
In the first round, the Play-Off Semi-Final, the number 3 placed team meets the number 4 placed team in a best-of-five.
The winner then faces the number 2 placed team in the Play-Off Final, also a best-of-five.
And the winner of that series then qualifies for the Korean Series.
The Lions have the first place almost secured and are trailed by LG Twins, which is 72-53, and Nexen Heroes, which is 70-52 with two ties.
The regular season ends coming Saturday.
Last year, the Lions won the Korean Series.
On Tuesday-evening, at Hanbat Stadium in Daejon, the Lions opened the score in the second inning on an RBI-grounder by Jeong-Sik Lee.
But in the home half of the second at bat, the Eagles answered with two runs when Van den Hurk gave up a 2-run homerun to Hyun-Seok Jung.
But the Lions recovered and rallied for four runs in the fifth inning on four basehits, then added two more runs in the sixth and another run in the eighth inning.
Van den Hurk started the game with four consecutive strikeouts.
With one out in the second inning, he gave up a single to Kwang-Min Song, which was followed by the homerun.
Hereafter, the righthander struckout two of the next three batters to end the inning.
In the third, fourth and fifth inning, Van den Hurk threw three hitless innings and retired nine of the ten batters he faced.
In the sixth at bat, Van den Hurk gave up an one-out double to Tae-Kyun Kim, which was the third and last basehit he would allow.
Besides giving up only three basehits, Van den Hurk struckout eight batters and walked only one.
During the regular season, Van den Hurk sometimes struggled and was send to the Minor League twice, but finished with a 7-9 record and 137 strikeouts in 142 2/3 inning.
Van den Hurk walked 48 batters and gave up 127 basehits, including 11 homeruns.
63 of the 67 runs he allowed were earned, giving him a 3.95 ERA in his first season in South Korea.
(October 1)
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