Dominant pitching carries LG Twins to undefeated record in young KBO season

By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, April 1 (Yonhap) -- With the first full week of the 2025 Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) season in the books, the LG Twins stand alone at the top of the standings with a perfect 7-0-0 (wins-losses-ties) record.

They have remained undefeated largely thanks to their dominant starting pitching.

On Opening Day on March 22, former major leaguer Yonny Chirinos made a successful KBO debut by holding the Lotte Giants to two runs on five hits in six innings while striking out eight batters.

Then his four rotation mates proceeded to make him look bad in comparison, as they each threw a scoreless outing.

First, it was Son Ju-young going seven shutout innings and allowing just one hit against the Giants on March 23. Two days later, Elieser Hernandez also tossed seven innings of one-hit ball and struck out eight against the Hanwha Eagles.

Im Chan-kyu followed that up with the first complete game shutout of his 14-year career the very next day. Just when it seemed the Twins couldn't possibly keep the streak going, No. 5 starter Song Seung-ki held the Eagles to a hit over seven scoreless frames the day after Im's gem.

All told, the Twins lead the KBO with a 1.86 ERA. They have allowed a league-low 36 hits in 63 innings. The NC Dinos and the SSG Landers, tied for second on that list, have each given up 64 hits.

The Twins' starting pitchers have a combined 1.50 ERA and have accounted for five wins. Seven clubs have not yet won five games this year.

These gaudy pitching numbers most likely won't be sustainable over the course of this 144-game season, but if history is any indication, this quick start has virtually guaranteed a postseason berth for the Twins.

Their seven-game winning streak is the third longest to start a season in league history, behind an eight-game run by the 2003 Kia Tigers and the record 10-game streak by the 2003 Samsung Lions and the 2022 SSG Landers.

Those three other clubs all reached the postseason, with the 2022 Landers winning the Korean Series title after spending the entire regular season in first place.

While their pitchers have been doing the heavy lifting, the Twins' bats have not been too shabby either.

They are second in the KBO with 55 runs scored and lead every team with an on-base plus slugging of .903. They have been the toughest team to strike out for opposing pitchers, with a league-low 54 Ks.

Cleanup Moon Bo-gyeong, coming off a career-best 22 home runs in 2024, is tied for the lead in the KBO with four home runs in seven games this year. His fellow masher, Austin Dean, has contributed three home runs.

The Twins may have benefited from a soft early schedule, having played three non-playoff teams from 2024 in the Giants, the Eagles and then the NC Dinos.

With the winning streak record in sight, they will face their first real test of the season this week with games against contenders.

First up will be the KT Wiz from Wednesday to Thursday at KT Wiz Park in Suwon, some 30 kilometers south of Seoul. The Twins will then host the defending champions Kia Tigers at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul from Friday to Sunday.

The Wiz have been notoriously slow starters in recent years and used second-half surges to squeeze into postseasons. They have opened the 2025 season by going 4-3-1, their best mark over the first eight games of a season since 2018.

The Wiz's bats haven't heated up yet, but their pitching has been as strong as expected, boasting the league's second-lowest ERA at 2.64.

The Tigers are without the reigning league MVP Kim Do-yeong, who suffered a hamstring injury on Opening Day, and Golden Glove-winning shortstop Park Chan-ho, who went down with a knee injury last Tuesday. They are just 3-5-0.

Their firepower has masked some pitching problems, though, with former major league slugger Patrick Wisdom having launched four home runs to tie Moon for the league lead.

The Twins have sold out all five home games so far, and their weekend series against the Tigers, whose fans have long made their presence felt at road games, could stretch the sellout streak to eight.

[email protected]
(END)