Landers not taking last-place foe lightly with postseason life at stake

In the words of their manager Lee Sung-yong, the SSG Landers have been playing high-stress, postseason-like games for the past 10 days in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). They are trying to qualify for the actual postseason, and their fate hinges on Monday's regular-season finale against last-place Kiwoom Heroes at Incheon SSG Landers Field, just west of Seoul. Win, and the Landers will pull into a tie with the KT Wiz for the fifth and final postseason spot. They will play the first-ever fifth-place tiebreaker game Tuesday. The winner of that game will advance to the wild card game scheduled for Wednesday. But if the Landers lose Monday, their season will be over. The Landers have won 11 of their 15 meetings against the Heroes so far this season, and they will send second-year left-hander Yun Seok-won to the mound to start Monday's game, with both of their two foreign aces, Enmanuel De Jesus and Ariel Jurado, out with injuries. The Landers, on the other hand, will have their ace Drew Anderson on t he hill. On paper, at least, the Landers are favored to win, but Lee wasn't about to take the Heroes lightly. "The ball is round, and a last-place team can beat a first-place team on any given day in baseball. That's why we can't let our guard down," Lee told reporters in his pregame media scrum. "We have to go all-in on today's game. We will only have tomorrow if we win today. And we've been living this day-to-day existence for the past 10 days now." Lee said playing such intense games has led to bumps and bruises for key players. He thanked his veterans for willing themselves to play despite nagging injuries. The Heroes have tried to do their part as a spoiler lately. They just played two tough games against the Wiz in a two-game weekend series, losing the first one in extra innings and blowing a five-run lead in the second one. The Heroes are dead last in runs scored for this season but they put up seven runs on the board in each of those two games against the Wiz. "Their hitters are on fire right no w," Lee noted. "The first five or six hitters in their lineup can be dangerous, and we know they can be difficult to handle when they swing the bat really well. We'll have to really bear down." Lee spent the final four seasons of his 18-year career with the Heroes and he was the Wiz's general manager when they won the Korean Series title in 2021. But the current Landers manager insisted this wasn't time to get nostalgic. "Just because I retired with the Heroes and was the general manager for the Wiz, it doesn't bring me any special meaning at this point in the season," Lee said. "I am only thinking about winning today's game. As professionals, we're here to win ball games." Asked if he had pitching plans mapped out for the possible tiebreaker game for Tuesday, Lee shook his head and said, "Not at all. We're only focused on today. That's all I am going to say." Lee also said his injured veteran Choo Shin-soo, who plans to retire at the end of this season, is unlikely to play due to his lingering shoulder i ssues. Choo has not played since Sept. 10 and has only appeared in 77 of the Landers' 143 games so far. If the Landers lose Monday, Choo's pro career, which began in the U.S. minor leagues in 2001 and includes 16 seasons in Major League Baseball, will be over. "We'll have to monitor the situation and see how he feels. I'll make that decision after seeing how the game plays out today," Lee said, choosing his words carefully when discussing the possibility that Choo might play. "We think it won't be easy for him to play in the postseason but we'll see what happens." Source: Yonhap News Agency