Two Foreign Aces Carry Hopes as Samsung, KIA Open Playoff Series

The opening game that could decide South Korea's 2026 professional baseball playoffs, a best-of-five series, is at hand. In a short series, the team that takes Game 1 gains the upper hand in the race to the Korean Series, and both the Samsung Lions and the KIA Tigers are expected to send out their most reliable foreign aces to seize the early advantage.

Game 1 between Samsung and KIA will be played at 2 p.m. on the 25th at Daegu Samsung Lions Park, according to the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) on the 23rd.

Samsung is expected to hand the ball to Chris Fedde, a 30-year-old American. Since joining the team midway through the season, he has gone 7-3 with a 2.95 earned run average. His strengths are a heavy fastball that sits around 150 kilometers per hour and an ability to limit hard contact.

He struggled against KIA during the regular season, however, going 0-2 with a 5.25 ERA in two starts.

Fedde sharpened his game form in a recent intrasquad scrimmage, throwing four scoreless innings and topping out at 150.1 kilometers per hour. He is determined to shed his struggles against KIA and get the postseason off to a good start. On social media, he wrote that he could not wait for Sunday to arrive.

Opposing him, KIA is likely to start James Nail, a 33-year-old American known as a big-game hunter. Nail, who led KIA to the 2024 Korean Series title, went 2-0 with a 3.24 ERA in four outings against Samsung this season, establishing himself as a pitcher tailor-made for the matchup. His signature sweeper, a slider-type breaking ball with a wide horizontal break, and his knack for inducing ground balls are potent weapons to neutralize the hitter-friendly dimensions of Daegu Samsung Lions Park. Beyond his championship experience, he carries the confidence of a strong outing in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series against the LG Twins on the 17th, when he allowed four hits and one run over seven innings.