NC Dinos beat Doosan Bears 14-9 to win dramatic KBO Wildcard

The NC Dinos beat the Doosan Bears 14-9 in a high-scoring KBO Wildcard on Thursday to take the series and advance to the first round of the playoffs.

Seo Ho-cheol of the NC Dinos rounds the bases after hitting a grand slam in the fourth inning of the first game of the Wildcard Series between the Dinos and the Doosan Bears at Changwon NC Park in Changwon, South Gyeongsang on Thursday. [YONHAP]

The NC Dinos beat the Doosan Bears 14-9 in a high-scoring KBO Wildcard on Thursday to take the series and advance to the first round of the playoffs.

It was a tense back and forth at Changwon NC Park in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, with the Bears initially looking confident and taking an early lead, only to give up a flurry of runs in the middle innings that would ultimately prove to be their downfall.

Doosan got runs across the plate in the first, second and third innings to take a 3-0 lead, only to throw it all away in just a couple of pitches the fourth when Seo Ho-cheol hit a grand slam and Kim Hyung-jun followed it up with a home run to take the score to 5-3.

Doosan again clawed their way back with two runs at the top of the fifth to tie the score at 5-5, only to throw it away again — this time far more literally — at the bottom of the inning when Lee Young-ha threw a pitch into the dirt that bounced off Yang Eui-ji’s chest to allow the go-ahead run home.

After a quiet sixth, NC piled on in the seventh when Seo batted in two more to take the score to 8-5.

Doosan pulled one back at the top of the eighth, only to give up a game-ending six runs at the bottom. Any chance the Seoul club had of pulling it back quickly disappeared at the hands of some shaky pitching and disappointing performances from the club’s older players — 36-year-old catcher Yang Eui-ji allowed third to be stolen twice in the eighth and 38-year-old shortstop Kim Jae-ho dropped a catch that would have ended the inning when the Bears still had an outside chance of fighting back.

Doosan fought back at the top of the ninth, holding on to score three runs with two outs before the deficit proved be too much for the Seoul club to overcome. NC closer Lee Young-chan — a Bear for most of his career — eventually shut down his former team to end the game with the Dinos up 14-9.

The Dinos hit three home runs in the offensive onslaught, with Kim hitting two for a total of four RBIs and Seo managing that crucial grand slam and a total of six RBIs across the game. Infielder Kim Ju-won also added a couple of runs, with Jason Martin taking the sole remaining RBI.

The loss ends Doosan’s postseason journey and earns the Dinos, who finished fourth in the regular season and entered the Wildcard with a one-game advantage, a ticket to the first round of the playoffs.

Doosan’s loss is just another scalp for the Wildcard Series, which has brought down every single fifth-place team since it was introduced in 2015. Over those nine seasons, only two teams have managed to push the series to two games — the Kia Tigers in 2016 and the Kiwoom Heroes in 2021 — but neither managed to make it out of the stage.

The one-and-done win gives the Dinos an extra day of rest before they’re due in Incheon for the first round of the playoffs. That five-game series against the SSG Landers starts at Incheon SSG Landers Field on Sunday.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]