 Lions force 6th game in Korean Series; Van den Hurk winning pitcher
Nederlands
 SEOUL (South Korea) -
Samsung Lions broke a 5-5 tie in the eighth inning on Tuesday-evening (October 29) to win 7-5 vs. Doosan Bears in Game 5 of the best-of-seven Korean Series.
With this, the Lions narrowed the deficit to 3-2 and forced a sixth game, which will be played at home in Daegu on Thursday.
Dutch pitcher Rick van den Hurk pitched in two scoreless innings in relief and was the winning pitcher tonight.
Han-yi Park hit a tie-breaking 2-run single in the eighth inning to give the Lions the win.
On a chilly and windy evening in Jamsil Stadium in Korean capital Seoul, the game started 35 minutes later than scheduled.
About an hour before the scheduled start, there was heavy rain, which lasted some 40 minutes.
It then took about an hour the make the field playable again.
The Lions opened the score with a 3-run rally with two outs off of starting pitcher Kyung-eun Noh.
With two outs, Tae-in Chae homered, then four consecutive singles followed, including RBI-singles by Seok-min Park and Tae-wan Kim, that increased the lead to 3-0.
The Bears got one run back in the second inning when Jun-seok Choi homered, but the Lions reacted in the third at bat.
Hyung-woo Choi (who was 3-for-5) then also homered, which made it a 4-1 score.
But in the home of the third inning, the Bears came alongside on an RBI-single by Jun-seok Choi and a 2-run double by Jae-il Oh off of starter Sung-hwan Yoon, who was then relieved.
In the fifth inning, the Lions briefly re-took the lead when Seok-min Park drove in a run with a single in the top half.
But in the home half, the Bears tied the score again when Jun-seok Choi hit his second homerun on the evening.
In the top of the seventh inning, Rick van den Hurk took over the pitching for Ji-man Ahn, who had relieved starter Sung-hwan Yoon in the third inning.
Van den Hurk, normally a starter, held the Bears scoreless, then the Lions, who also were held scoreless for two innings, took the lead in the top of the eighth inning for the third time and this time to keep.
With runners on second and third base, Han-yi Park singled to bring in both runners.
Before this at bat, Park was only 1-for-14 in the Series.
With this, Van den Hurk, who was the starter in Game 2, became the pitcher-of-record and was the winning pitcher.
The Dutchman held the Bears scoreless again in the bottom of the eighth.
The righthander gave up one hit and struckout two in the two innings he pitched.
Seung-hwan Oh then struckout two in the bottom of the ninth to earn a save.
The Lions collected eleven basehits and their seven runs tonight matched the total of runs the team scored in the first four games combined.
(October 29)
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