After escaping from the KBO’s lowest position of 10th in 50 days, the Samsung Lions will look to leapfrog into eighth place in a three-game series against the SSG Landers starting this weekend.

After a 1-1 midweek series against the Doosan Bears that was canceled due to rain on the 10th, Samsung won the only other game of the day, as Kiwoom lost to Lotte.

Samsung, which has risen in the second half of the season on the back of the league’s best batting performance, had recently pulled even with Kiwoom after the latter lost its ninth straight game, and while Samsung had hoped to turn the tables with a win on Wednesday, Kiwoom won the same day and remained in 10th place without a game in hand.

In a game that was canceled due to rain, Samsung looked to be out of reach when Kiwoom took the lead in Gocheok, but Lotte rallied early in the game to eventually close out the game 12-8, leaving Samsung to rely on others to help them escape the bottom of the table.

Samsung, which hadn’t finished off the bottom of the league since swapping places with the Hanwha Eagles on June 22 to fall to 10th place, was facing a growing sense that it could finish last for the first time since its inception.

By claiming Suarez off waivers, who had been sidelined with an injury, and bringing in Widener from NC, Samsung showed a willingness to overcome the starting gap and turn things around, at least accomplishing their primary goal of escaping 10th place.

There’s a lot of league play left, but with more than nine games separating them from fifth-place Doosan, the team with the fall baseball berth, Samsung is looking a little higher than ninth place for now, based on their recent six-game winning streak.

One spot up, the eighth-ranked Hanwha Eagles have seen a recent slump of one win, one draw, and eight losses, leaving them just 1.5 games behind Samsung.

With the Hanwha Eagles as their next target, Samsung heads to Incheon this weekend for a three-game road trip against the SSG Landers, who have faltered somewhat of late as they look to leapfrog into eighth place.

While leader LG has gone 8-2 in their last 10 games, second-place SSG has gone just 5-2, leaving them five games out of first place and three games behind third-place KT Wiz. Add to that the painful memory of dropping a series in Daegu at the end of last month, the last time they faced Samsung.스포츠토토

Samsung, who have been relatively evenly matched against SSG this season with 5 wins and 7 losses, will be looking to capitalize on their recent upswing and their opponent’s slump to once again win the Winning Series and catch up to 8th place.

For the first game of the weekend’s three-game series, which will be a step towards the eighth place leap, Samsung has announced Ace Buchanan as the starter, while opponent SSG will start Oh Won-seok. Meanwhile, Samsung’s next target, eighth-ranked Hanwha, opens a three-game home weekend series against Dusan.