Lotte, under new head coach Kim Tae-hyung, failed to get their first win of the season again.
Lotte went 2-8 against KIA on Sunday at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field. After winning the opening two games against SSG with Aaron Wilkerson and Park Se-woong, and against Kia on the 26th with Charlie Barnes, even Na Gyun-ahn couldn’t find the win column on Sunday.
Na gave up six runs in the first inning. After getting two outs, he walked Socrates to lead off the inning. He was shaken up quickly when a forkball he threw on a full count to No. 4 hitter Choi Hyung-woo fell short and was hit for a two-run home run to left field.
He walked Lee Woo-seong and hit Kim Sun-bin with a pitch to center, then gave up a double to Hwang Dae-hyun in the seventh. An error followed. Left fielder Go Seung-min lined out to left fielder Hwang Dae-in, but catcher Yoo Kang-nam couldn’t catch it. The run scored Kim Sun-bin from first base to give KIA a 4-0 lead.
Na Gyun-ahn gave up a single to left to Kim Tae-gun in the eighth, walked Choi Won-joon to load the bases, and gave up a single to left to Park Chan-ho in the first before striking out Kim Do-young in the second to end the long inning. After throwing 40 pitches in the first inning alone, Na went five innings. In the second inning, he settled down completely and didn’t allow another run. In five innings, he allowed six runs (three earned) on seven hits (one home run) with three walks and three strikeouts.
However, Lotte was unable to score a single run while Na Gyun-ahn was pitching. They were completely stymied by Kia starter James Nail’s changeup.
After Noh Jin-hyuk singled in the second inning, Yoo Kang-nam walked in the third, and Ko Seung-min reached on an error in the fourth, the only real hits came in the bottom of the fifth inning when Yoo led off with a double 사설토토 to right-center.
It wasn’t until the top of the sixth inning that things seemed to come alive, as Go Seung-min hit a solo home run off Nail in the middle of the inning and Reyes and Jeon Jun-woo followed with back-to-back singles in center field, but no runs were scored. In the bottom of the seventh, after Yoo Kang-nam drew a leadoff walk against Kia bullpen Jang Hyun-sik, the visitors added a run on a throwing error on Park Seung-wook’s single to right.
Lotte also had a chance in the top of the eighth when leadoff hitter Reyes drew a walk and Jang Doo-sung was thrown out at second base on a groundout by Jeon Jun-woo. Lotte, which scored just two runs on six hits and three walks, dropped its fourth straight game to open the season.