The curtain is finally rising.

The NC Dinos and SSG Landers will play the first game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO semi-playoff at SSG Landers Field in Incheon at 2 p.m. on the 22nd. NC, the fourth-place team in the regular season, played the wild card game against the Doosan Bears at Changwon NC Park on the 19th, but got on the bus to Incheon with a light heart as it finished the series in one game with a 14-9 victory.

After finishing the regular season in third place, SSG had four days to reorganize. Players who needed physical strength took enough rest to prepare for the semi-playoff. Rather than preparing for a specific team, he has been training according to the situation of the SSG team.

Then, what is the point to watch in the first round of the semi-playoff. First round without Peddy and McKitty, Shin Min-hyuk and Elias’ innings Foreign ace representing both teams, Eric Peddy and Kirk McCarty, were included in the semi-playoff roster side by side. However, neither player was in charge of starting the first round. The schedule of the two players’ appearances is likely to be determined by their physical conditions. 파친코

This season, Shin Min-hyuk had five wins, five losses and a 3.98 ERA in 122 innings in 29 games, and went down the mound after pitching well against the Gwangju KIA Tigers on the 17th, his last appearance, with two hits and no outs and five strikeouts. Although he will start again after taking a four-day break, there is no big problem because he pitched only 48 pitches at the time.

Elias, who was hired as a substitute foreign pitcher for Eni Romero, played from the game against the Incheon LG Twins on May 24, and lived up to the team’s expectations with eight wins, six losses and a 3.70 ERA in 131 ⅓ innings in 22 games this season. In particular, as time passed, he improved in all aspects, including his control and ability to play innings, making SSG manager Kim Won-hyung smile.

However, the results of the face-to-face matches are not very good. Elias was sluggish against NC this season with one win and an ERA of 7.53 in 14 ⅓ innings in three games. Many NC batters, including Park Min-woo and Oh Young-soo (3 hits in 5 at-bats), Kwon Hee-dong (3 hits in 7 at-bats), Seo Ho-chul (2 hits in 5 at-bats), and Jason Martin (3 hits in 8 at-bats), targeted Elias.

As semi-playoffs are played up to five games, they can play the series with a long breath, but both teams have the same desire to miss Game 1. This is why the starting pitcher should lead the inning as long as possible.

Daytime variables, catch fly balls. In this year’s fall baseball, the number of night games is much higher than that of daytime games, but the fact that the most important game in the series is daytime games is something the fielders need to be careful about.

Moreover, pressure on short-term games may add to the possibility of missing easy hits. A similar situation occurred in the wild card game between Doosan and NC. Misses from right fielder Kim Tae-geun and second baseman Kang Seung-ho, who did not play smoothly in the bottom of the seventh inning, provided an excuse for the error. There was no problem in handling the ball because it was a night game, but the failure to keep the basic skills led to the team’s defeat.

In such a short-term match, one mistake is bound to determine the atmosphere. Now is the time for experienced fielders to make mistakes. The team that reduces the number of residual errors is likely to laugh.

Even in the rising NC bat, JunPO?

SSG is one of the teams that shows advantages in terms of hitting, and there are more than one or two batters to be wary of, such as Han Yu-seom and Choi Jung. However, NC is also showing off its formidable power in this fall baseball.

In particular, Seo Ho-chul broke the record for the most RBIs in a game in the wild card game against Doosan by hitting as many as six RBIs, including a grand slam. Kim Hyung-joon clearly imprinted his presence with two home runs. Rather, it was a wild-card game in which the lower-ranked batters’ performance was more prominent than the center hitter.

NC wants to continue the trend. There was not a lot of time to rest, and he entered the series with a sense of practice. Will NC’s bat of fire also exert its power at SSG Landers Field in Incheon.