NC Dinos Capture First KBO Crown, Deny Doosan Repeat

Tuesday night at Gocheok Sky Dome in southwestern Seoul the NC Dinos held off a late push by the Doosan Bears to bring home the Korean Series title, the club's first since joining the league in 2013.

In front of 10 percent capacity crowd which was made necessary thanks to new Covid-19 related regulation in the capital area, NC used strong pitching and a breakout 6th inning to ensure that the Korean Series trophy wouldn't be returning to Doosan's home in Jamsil this year.

The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the 5th when DH Lee Myung-gi drove in left fielder Kwon Hee-dong with a single to right field. NC then followed that up in the 6th with a mini onslaught. Third baseman Park Suk-min started off the scoring by driving in center fielder Aaron Altherr with a line drive single to left, which prompted Doosan manager Kim Tae-hyoung to move off of starting pitcher Raul Alcantrara in favor of reliever Park Chi-guk. After walking two of the next three batters Park was quickly pulled for Lee Seung-jin.

Unfortunately for Bears fans Lee wasn't the answer they were hoping for and the first batter he faced, NC second baseman Park Min-woo, slapped a single to left field driving in two to extend the Dino lead to 4-0.

Doosan would threaten in the top of the seventh on the back of RBI's from Kim Jae-hwan and Kim Jae-ho cutting the lead to 4-2. However that would be as close as they would come with a collection of NC relievers holding the Bears scoreless the rest of the night.

NC Closer Won Jong-hyun punctuated the evening with a nasty breaking pitch to strike out Doosan second baseman Choi Joo-hwan, cementing NC as the 2020 KBO champions.

Drew Rucinski picked up for the win for NC, going five scoreless innings and only allowing six hits. Raul Alcantrara was on the losing side for Doosan.

Note: Although officially NC will be taking the Korean Series trophy back to Changwon, the team was also presented with a alternative trophy by the team's owner, gaming company NC Soft. The alternate and much cooler trophy is actually a life size replica of the +9 Execution Sword, which is the most powerful item in the company's uber-popular game, Lineage.