NC will face KT Wiz in Game 5 of the 2023 Shinhan Bank Sol KBO League Playoff (PO, three wins out of five) at KT Wiz Park in Suwon on the 5th.
NC, which had the upper hand after catching the first and second PO games first, lost the third and fourth games as the batting line became quiet.
In Game 5, he changed his starting lineup significantly.
Son Ah-seop (designated hitter) and Seo Ho-cheol (third baseman) will be in charge of the table setter. Seo Ho-cheol, who was placed in the lower batting order, moved to No. 2.
Park Min-woo (second baseman), Park Gun-woo (right fielder), and Kwon Hee-dong (left fielder) are in charge of the center hitter.
Park Kun-woo moved to No. 4 instead of Jason Martin, who had no hit in 14 at-bats in four PO games as the fourth batter. Park Kun-woo has hit a batting average of 0.267 (4 hits in 15 at-bats) and one home run in four PO games.
Martin moved to center field for the sixth batter. Oh Young-soo (third baseman), Kim Hyung-joon (catcher), and Kim Joo-won (shortstop) will then make it seven to nine times.
NC coach Kang In-kwon said, "We have forward deployed players who are in good condition now because their scoring ability was not good in the previous two games," adding, "Martin also went down to pay attention to hitting." "I thought about putting in players other than Martin, but I decided that it would be better to change the order while maintaining the players who were originally going out," he explained.
Seo Ho-cheol only has one hit in 15 at-bats (batting average 0.067) in this series, but he will play the role of an offensive spearhead. Coach Kang said, "I deployed it as the second because I showed good performance in the last at-bat (Game 4 of the PO)."
On the other hand, KT, which drove in 11 runs with 14 hits in the fourth game, maintained its starting lineup.
On the same day, KT formed a lineup that led to Kim Sang-soo (striker), Hwang Jae-gyun (third baseman), Anthony Alford (left fielder), Park Byung-ho (third baseman), Jang Sung-woo (catcher), Moon Sang-chul (designated hitter), Oh Yoon-seok (second baseman), Bae Jung-dae (center fielder), and Cho Yong-ho (right fielder).
Meanwhile, all the autumn rain that soaked Suwon Stadium stopped. With ground maintenance in full swing, the game will begin normally at 2 p.m.