(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Doosan Bears take 2-1 lead in Korean Series
Nederlands
  DAEGU / SEOUL (South Korea) -
Defending champion Samsung Lions again is playing for the Championship-title in professional Korean baseball.
The Lions won the title in the past four seasons and are now facing the Doosan Bears in the best-of-seven Korean Series.
In the last two seasons, Dutch pitcher Rick van den Hurk won the title with the Lions.
Today (October 29), the righthander won the Championship-title in Japan with Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
As winner of the regular season, the Lions automatically qualified for the Championship-final.
The Bears, who finished in third place, however had to play a long Play-Off Series.
First, they had to win for the winner of the Wild Card.
That best-of-three series was won by Nexen Heroes (2-0 vs. SK Wyverns).
Hereafter, the Bears won the best-of-five Semi-Play-Offs vs. the Heroes (3-1).
In the next round, the Bears faced the NC Dinos, who had finished in second place in the season and by doing so, automatically qualified for this Play-Off round.
The Bears then won the best-of-five vs. the Dinos 3-2, to reach the Final.
The Lions opened the Korean Series on Monday (October 26) at home with a 9-8 win.
The next day, the Bears won Game Two with a 6-1 score to even the Series.
Today (Thursday, October 29), the Bears took a 2-1 lead by winning 5-1.
On Monday, at Daegu Baseball Stadium, the Bears were leading 5-0 after two innings.
The Lions were able to come back from the third inning on, scoring twice in both the third and fourth, but trailed 8-4 in the seventh inning.
The home team then rallied for five runs in the bottom of the seventh to take a 9-8 lead, which also was the final score.
The visiting Bears took a 2-0 lead in the first inning, then added three runs in the second at bat.
In the first inning,Kyoung-min Hur hit a solo-homerun off of starter Alfredo Figaro, then added a run on three basehits.
In the next at bat, Soo-bin Jung hit an RBI-double, then Kyuoungmin Hur followed with a 2-run single to make it 5-0.
In the bottom of the third, a double by Sang-su Kim and single by Han-yi Park produced the first two Lions-runs.
After the Bears has added a run in the fourth, the Lions answered with two of its own in the home half to narrow the deficit to 5-4.
In the inning, Sok-min Park led off with a homerun, then Seung-yuop Lee doubled and went on to score the next run.
In the top of the sixth inning, the Bears took some more distance, scoring two runs.
With the bases loaded, Hyun-soo Kim delivered a 2-run single to lift the lead to 8-4.
But then, the Lions struck with five runs in the seventh inning.
Han-yi Park led off with a single, then, after a pitching change, Young-seop Bae was hit by a pitch.
Next batter Yamaico Navarro then contributed with a 3-run homerun to make it an 8-7 score.
With two outs and runners on second and third base, an error led to two more runs to give the Lions a 9-8 lead.
On Tuesday, in Game Two, it were the Bears that had a productive inning, scoring four runs in the fifth inning.
After four scoreless innings, the Bears struck off of starter Won-sam Jang.
The lefthander then gave up an one-out double to Jae-won Oh.
With two outs, he scored on a single by Jae-ho Kim.
More basehits followed, including RBI-singles by Byung-hun Min and Hyun-soo Kim to make it 4-0.
The Bears added runs in the seventh and eighth inning.
In the seventh on a basesloaded sacrifice fly by Byung-hun Min and in the eighth on a single by Kyoung-min Hur.
The Lions scored their lone run in the ninth inning on a hit by Seung-yuop Lee.
Winning pitcher Dustin Nippert threw seven innings for the Bears.
He now has a scoreless streak of 24 innings in this postseason.
Today (Thursday), at Jamsil Stadium in capital Seoul, the Bears took a 2-1 lead in the Series.
In the game, which was delayed twice by rain, the Lions opened the score in the first inning when rookie Ja-wook Koo led of with an infield-hit, advanced on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Yamaico Navarro.
In the bottom of the third, the Bears got the bases loaded with one out, but failed to score.
In the fourth, they got their first two batters on base via walks.
After they were moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt, a single by Kun-woo Park drove in both runners to give the Bears a 2-1 lead.
In the fifth, the Bears got the bases loaded again.
A sacrifice fly by Eui-ji Yang then lifted the score to 3-1.
The Lions then left two runners in scoring position in the sixth inning, then Bears took more distance in the home half of the at bat.
With the bases loaded (again), a force out was followed by an error, resulting in two runs and a 5-1 lead.
(October 29)
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