Hanwha finish August with six straight losses as Doosan’s Choi Min-seok wins four

Hanwha’s August ended with another collapse. The Eagles lost 10-7 to NC in a 10-inning game in Daejeon, turning a 7-7 tie into defeat after two outs in the 10th inning.

Hanwha pitcher Kim Seo-hyun issued a walk to Seo Ho-cheol after making a multi-inning appearance. Kim Hyung-jun then doubled, putting runners on second and third. Chun Jae-hwan followed with the go-ahead single. After Cho Dong-wook took over, right fielder Lee Do-hoon committed a catching error on what appeared to be a flyout, allowing two more runs.

The eighth-place Eagles ended the month 3-15, with a .167 winning percentage and six consecutive losses for the second time in August. It was only the third time Hanwha had won three or fewer games in a month in which it played at least 10 games. The other instances came in September and October 2014, when the team finished among the league’s bottom teams for a third straight season.

The contrast with Doosan was stark. Choi Min-seok, the league’s sole wins leader, earned his 13th victory in a 15-1 win over Kiwoom at Jamsil and his fourth win in August. Hanwha’s entire team won three games during the month, one fewer than Choi alone.

Hanwha entered September with a 49-3-62 record, 11 games behind fifth-place Doosan. At the start of August, the team was sixth and only 3.5 games behind fifth-place KIA. A Monte Carlo simulation cited in the article put Hanwha’s playoff probability at 0.1%, down from 35.1%.