(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Roger Bernadina wins South Korean title with Tigers
Nederlands
 SEOUL (South Korea) -
KIA Tigers, the team of Dutch outfielder Roger Bernadina, has captured the title in the professional Korean Baseball Organization for the first time since 2009.
On Monday (October 30), Tigers won 7-6 against defending champion Doosan Bears in Game 5 to win the best-of-seven Korean Series, 4-1.
It is the eleventh time that Tigers wins the Championship-title.
In the regular season, Tigers also finished in first place to automatically qualify for the Korean Series.
This year, Bernadina played in his first season in South Korea.
He became the second Dutch player to play for a Korean champion.
In 2013 and 2014, pitcher Rick van den Hurk won the KBO-title with Samsung Lions.
Reigning champion Doosan Bears, which had captured the title the previous two years, had won the opener last Wednesday with a 5-3 score.
In that game, Bernadina hit a 3-run homerun for Tigers.
The next day, Tigers evened the Series by winning only 1-0.
In that game, a sacrifice bunt from Bernadina brought a runner to third base, who then went on to score the lone run.
Tigers took a 2-1 lead on Saturday-afternoon by winning with a 6-3 score.
The team then won its third consecutive game on Sunday-afternoon, winning 5-1.
In that game, Bernadina was productive, hitting two basehits, including a triple, batted in two runs and scored once.
In today's game, both pitching aces started.
American Dustin Nippert for the home-playing Doosan Bears and Dominican Héctor Noesí for the visiting KIA Tigers.
Both also faced each other in the opener, which then was won by the Bears.
Today, at Jamsil Baseball Stadium, Tigers struck early, but in the end won with only an one-run difference.
In the top of the third inning, Myung-ki Lee led off with an infield-hit.
He moved on a sacrifice bunt, then scored the first run when Roger Bernadina delivered a single.
Hereafter, Tigers got the bases loaded when Hyung-woo Choi singled and the next batter was hit by a pitch.
With two outs, Bum-ho Lee connected well and hit a grand slam homerun to make it a 5-0 score.
This was the fourth grand slam in the history of the Korean Series.
Tigers made it a 7-0 score in the sixth inning.
Sun-bin Kim singled in Min-sik Kim, which led to a pitching change.
Nippert was relieved by Deok-ju Ham, but he began with a wild pitch, then gave up a runscoring single to Myung-ki Lee that lifted the score to 7-0.
...Roger Bernadina hitting for the Netherlands during...
...the 2013 World Baseball Classic...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
In the bottom of the sixth, Tigers short stop Seon-bin Kim made a great diving catch on a line with a runner at first base.
With two outs and a runner on second base, the ball was hit in short centerfield behind second base.
Centerfielder Roger Bernadina ran fowards and caught the ball, but the second baseman, who also attempted to catch the ball, ran into him and a hard collision followed.
The two fell down, but Bernadina hold onto the ball to end the inning.
The suspense came back completely in the game when Bears rallied for six runs in the bottom of the seventh inning.
With two runners on base, Byung-heon Min delivered a runscoring single.
Next hitter Jae-won Oh drove the ball into deep right-centerfield and barely missed a homerun, but brought in one run.
The bases got loaded when Gun-woo Park was hit by a pitch.
That led to a pitching change, as Dong-seop Sim took over from Noesí.
He began with a strikeout, but then gave up a 2-run single to Jae-il Oh that made it a 7-4 score.
Another pitching change followed.
Se-hyun Kim took over and was greeted with a runscoring single from Nick Evans.
A grounder by Joo-hwan Choi led to the next run and narrowed the deficit to only 7-6, but then the third out was finally made.
With a 7-6 lead, Hyeon-jong Yang, who was the starter in Game 2 last Thursday, closed the game for Tigers.
In Game 2, Yang threw a complete game shutout.
In the ninth, Yang walked the lead-off hitter and with one out, an error was made on a sacrifice bunt, which led to runners on second and third base.
With first base open, an intentional walk followed to set up a force play.
With the bases loaded an infield-fly followed, then the game and the Series ended when a pop-up in foul territory by Jae-ho Kim was caught by the catcher.
Hyeon-jong Yang earned a save and was named Most Valuable Player of the Korean Series.
(October 30)
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