With the Chuseok holiday just around the corner, the fierce battle for the 3rd place spot in the regular league shows no signs of stopping. Professional baseball team KIA Tigers is expected to go all out in their matchups against Doosan and LG, deploying their starting rotation of Oller, Nail, and Shirakawa alongside their entire high-leverage bullpen.

This week, KIA will travel to Jamsil Baseball Stadium on the 23rd for a single-game showdown against the Doosan Bears, before returning to their home ground in Gwangju to play a crucial two-game series against the LG Twins during the Chuseok holiday on September 26th and 27th.

Currently, KIA is fully focused on the top-three battle. This is because they have succeeded in creating a relatively stable game gap with the 5th-place Doosan. Being only 3 games behind 3rd-place LG, attention is focused on whether the results of this two-game series will pave the way for reclaiming 3rd place, or instead run them into a massive wall. Including this upcoming two-game series, KIA has a total of 5 matchups remaining against LG, and with a lagging head-to-head record of 4 wins and 7 losses, how much resilience they can display at their home stadium in Gwangju is expected to determine their future fate.

Although KIA is facing player absences such as Kim Do-young due to the Asian Games, expectations are being raised by their thick core lineup featuring Castro and Na Sung-bum.

Castro showing his best batting form. Provided by KIA Tigers. Over the past week, Castro has boasted an insane batting form with 9 hits in 19 at-bats (including 2 doubles), 4 RBIs, an on-base percentage of 0.881, a slugging percentage of 0.579, and an OPS of 1.460.

Na Sung-bum is also recording solid numbers over the same period with 4 hits in 15 at-bats (including 2 doubles), 1 home run, 3 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.886. Notably, in the game against NC on the 19th, he showed off his enduring prowess by hitting a massive, game-clinching solo home run with a distance of 140 meters off Koo Chang-mo's slider in the top of the 5th inning.

The game schedule is also giving a boost to KIA. KIA has only 3 games scheduled for this week. With two days of rest between games allowing for stamina management, both the starting rotation and the bullpen are expected to pour all available resources into the games.

KIA will send out Oller as the starting pitcher for their single-game showdown against Doosan, an appearance decided in consideration of staggered rest periods. Consequently, Nail and Shirakawa are scheduled to pitch in order during the two-game series against LG.

KIA struggled during the Chuseok holidays in 2023 and 2024, recording 1 win and 3 losses, and 1 win and 2 losses, respectively. The key issue is whether KIA, which has shown fluctuating performance over the years, can overcome their Chuseok slump this year.

Despite the adverse situation of key player absences, baseball fans' attention is heavily focused on whether KIA can reignite the spark of their chase in the remaining games and finally capture the 3rd-place summit.

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