The last time Mel Rojas Jr. played postseason ball in South Korea, things didn't go quite the way he wanted. His KT Wiz were the No. 2 seed but lost to the third-seeded Doosan Bears in the second round of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason. In the deciding Game 4, a 2-0 Wiz loss, Rojas made the final out by popping out to shortstop. Rojas left Korea to play in Japan in 2021 but rejoined the Wiz before the 2024 season. And after sending the Wiz back to the postseason with a power display in a tiebreaker game Tuesday evening, Rojas said he wants to push his club even further. With Rojas hitting a solo shot in the first inning and then a go-ahead three-run shot in the eighth at KT Wiz Park in Suwon, just south of Seoul, the Wiz defeated the SSG Landers 4-3 in the fifth-place tiebreaker game to punch the final postseason ticket. Next up in the wild card game will be the Bears. As the lower seed, the Wiz must win two straight games to advance to the next round, while the Bears will have two crack s to get either a win or a tie. "I've been saying this since the start of the season. The goal is to win the Korean Series," Rojas said through an interpreter. "No. 5 seed has never won a Korean Series title and I think it will be an extremely tough challenge. It will be a tough matchup against the Bears but I think our guys gained a lot of confidence from the win today. We have a lot of great players here and if we can produce synergy, I think we can win the Korean Series." When reminded that the last team he had faced in the postseason was the Bears, Rojas vividly recalled being the last batter of the final loss for his team. "It is such a bitter memory. I want to get my revenge the best I can," Rojas said. "That was our team's first postseason, and we didn't have enough experience to know how to handle different situations. But this team has been in every postseason since then and the guys have more experience now. I think we're now capable of playing to the best of our abilities." In recent years, the Wiz have made a habit of struggling early in the season and making a push later on. In 2024, they were in ninth place among 10 clubs on June 30 at 36-44-2 (wins-losses-ties) but finished the season on a 36-26 run, the second-best mark in the league in that span. "It's all because we're wizards," Rojas quipped, giving a nod to the team's nickname. Rojas' game-breaking home run Tuesday came against Kim Kwang-hyun, a veteran starter making his first relief appearance in nearly two years. For the Landers, it has been a postseason tradition for Kim to make a relief appearance to close out a key victory. Though this wasn't a postseason game, Kim was tasked with protecting a 3-1 lead. After taking over with a runner on, Kim promptly gave up a single and then served up the big homer to Rojas on a 2-0 changeup. "I knew Kim Kwang-hyun was going to come into this game and I tried to be ready mentally," Rojas said. "I struggled against him during the regular season because he had mixed up his pitches really well. But today, he left his pitch a bit high in the zone and I was able to take advantage." Rojas said he knew he had hit a home run as soon as he made contact. He didn't even see the flight of the ball, and instead looked toward his teammates in the first base dugout, pounding his chest. "At first, the guys didn't seem so sure that I'd hit one out. I was like, 'I am Rojas. You guys don't believe in my power?'" Rojas said with a smile. "And they started celebrating pretty soon, but I knew before that the ball was gone." Source: Yonhap News Agency
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