Fall coming closer to the top and bottom…There’s no middle-ranking team whose goal is “fifth.”

At the end of the professional baseball pennant race every year, the fifth-place fight becomes as fierce as the lead fight for a direct ticket to the Korean Series. The fifth place, which will take the last postseason train with a wild card, is similar to the bronze medal in terms of the Olympics. It is also a cut line between life and death in another season. However, this year, teams fighting for fifth place are not satisfied with fifth place.

As of the 4th, the mid-range battle is very fierce. The fifth place in the season is NC with a winning rate of 0.528 (57 wins, 2 draws and 51 losses), which is no different from the fourth place KIA (56 wins, 2 draws and 50 losses). However, the gap between NC and third-place SSG (60 wins, 1 draw, 51 losses) is only 1.5 games apart. On top of that, the distance from second-place KT (63 wins, 2 draws, 50 losses) is 3.5 games away, and these teams are in a situation where it would not be strange to dream big in each scenario.

Leading LG, which is 5.5 games apart from KT, is in a relatively stable position, and the second to fifth-place teams are closely attached enough to have to line up again even with a week-long race.

It is difficult to predict the final ranking of the semifinals since September because of the change in the game by section in the pennant race this season. KT, which seemed to be in a hurry to escape the last place until early June, has been in a position to threaten the lead with an explosive race for nearly three months, and KIA, which seemed to be too much to advance to the semifinals in the middle of last month, has recently thrown the upper-middle battle into chaos. On the contrary, SSG, which had drawn a semi-final structure with LG at the beginning of the season, has retreated one or two steps, and now the mid-range top-tier game is changing rapidly enough to have the cut line in the semifinals in sight.

Last year, the structure at the end of the season was clear. As of September 5 last year, the leaders SSG and LG fought for the last two-way race by four games, while the second-place LG and third-place Kiwoom had a gap of six games. However, Kiwoom and fourth-place KT are neck-and-neck again by 1.5 games. On top of that, fifth-ranked KIA fell by eight games to fourth-ranked KT and had no choice but to keep fifth place.

However, this year, an environment has been formed in which all of the top five teams can target higher. On the premise that each team has a good flow, it also has a history that is comparable to any team. For example, if KT is in the trend of the past three months, it is not enough to compare with the leading LG. KIA also proved the power of the league’s strongest batting lineup, recording a team batting average of 0.337 in the 10-day race from August to September. NC, which had many issues with pitchers’ injuries, also showed strength that was not inferior to the leading LG when it was in normal power. NC is also the only team ahead of LG this year (8 wins and 6 losses). 바카라

Doosan, which had remained firmly in the top five in the first half, is a few steps away from fifth place and sixth place in a three-game gap. However, Doosan is also expected to aim for a chance to advance to the semifinals. An unusual September is passing, with teams in the semi-finals facing the end of the season of extreme extremes.