New York Mets advance to World Series for the first time in 15 years

New York Mets advance to World Series for the first time in 15 years. October. 23, 2015 08:20. bom@donga.com.

In a baseball post season, there is no "second chance." Even if a team did well in a regular season, with poor performance in a post season, they are out. A post season is when you "remove your badge" from the regular season because your scores from the regular season are not really counted in the post season. The same goes to the playoff between the NC Dinos and the Doosan Bears as well as the national league championship between the New York Mets and the Chicago Cubs.

○ An unexpected hit instead of a big hit

The top player from this year’s major league post season is Danial Murphy of the New York Mets. On Wednesday (in the local time), he hit homeruns in six straight matches in the fourth round of the national league championship held in Wrigley Field, Chicago. This is a new record surpassing the previous made by Carlos Beltran of the Houston Astros in 2004. Murphy hit seven homeruns so far in the post season this year, challenging to break the record of most homeruns in series matches in the World Series.

The interesting part is that Murphy is not a homerun batter. This year, he only hit 14 homeruns in the regular season. But now the name "Murphy" has become an icon of homeruns. This is how "one big hit" in a post season has a huge impact. On Murphy with the ridiculously outstanding performance, people say "the goat" is back in 70 years. There is a famous story of Billy Sianis cursing that “Wrigley Field will never see another World Series,” after being stopped from entering the stadium with his goat named "Murphy."

In the Korea Baseball playoffs, the batter with most homeruns is not the fourth batter of Doosan`s Kim Hyun-soo or NC`s Eric Thames. It is Min Byung-hun, who hit 12 homeruns in this year’s regular season. Doosan Manager Kim Tae-hyung appointed Min as the third batter, saying, "Nobody does well when he is the third batter, so I don’t worry about who does it." Unexpectedly becoming the third, Min yet led the team with two homeruns in the first round. In comparison, NC`s Choi Jae-won hit two homeruns in the whole regular season this year, including one in the third round. Choi`s fellow team member No Jin-hyuk hit his first homerun in the third round of this year’s season.

○ Unreliable aces

Chicago Cubs righty Jake Arrieta was considered as the strongest frontrunner for Cy Young Award, but he failed with four lost points in five innings in the second round of the championship against Mets. As Cubs failed for the World Series, he lost his reputation as "no hit, no run," "the most winning player" (22 wins), and "the second least average suicide points" (1.77).

NC`s Hacker (19 wins), the most winning player in Korea Baseball, failed leaving the mound early with four lost points in four innings in the first round. Yoo Hee-gwan of Doosan, the winner of Choi Dong-won Award, lost four points during two and one third innings, saying goodbye to his good memories of the 18 wins in the regular season.