The regular season for the Korea Baseball Organization, the highest level of baseball in South Korea, is in full swing, making the KBO one of the first major professional sports leagues to return to action during the coronavirus pandemic.
For those just getting familiar with the Korean baseball league, it’s action-packed baseball filled with home runs, bat flips (lots and lots of bat flips), former MLB players and Korean-born stars who could follow the path of Hyun-Jin Ryu and Ji-Man Choi from the KBO to major league stardom.
You can watch the action with six regular-season English-language broadcast games per week, airing primarily on ESPN2 at 5:30 a.m. ET Tuesdays through Fridays, 4 a.m. ET on Saturdays and 1 a.m. ET on Sundays.
KBO on ESPN broadcast schedule
Stream live KBO games and replays on the ESPN App
(All times ET; in addition to the game replays listed, all KBO League games on ESPN2 will also re-air leading directly into the next live game telecast.)
Sunday, May 31
1 a.m.: ESPN — Lotte Giants vs. Doosan Bears (live)
Tuesday, June 2
5:30 a.m.: ESPN — Lotte Giants vs. Kia Tigers (live)
2 p.m.: ESPN2 — Lotte Giants vs. Kia Tigers (rebroadcast)
Wednesday, June 3
5:30 a.m.: ESPN — Kiwoom Heroes vs. Hanwha Eagles (live)
2 p.m.: ESPN2 — Kiwoom Heroes vs. Hanwha Eagles (rebroadcast)
Thursday, June 4
5:30 a.m.: ESPN — Lotte Giants vs. Kia Tigers (live)
2 p.m.: ESPN2 — Lotte Giants vs. Kia Tigers (rebroadcast)
Friday, June 5
5:30 a.m.: ESPN — NC Dinos vs. Hanwha Eagles (live)
2 p.m.: ESPN2 — NC Dinos vs. Hanwha Eagles (rebroadcast)
Saturday, June 6
4 a.m.: ESPN — LG Twins vs. Kiwoom Heroes (live)
Sunday, June 7
1 a.m.: ESPN — LG Twins vs. Kiwoom Heroes (live)
Key links
KBO highlights — get ready for some bat flips!
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SK Wyverns Choi Ji-hoon slides across the field to make a catch but narrowly misses going straight into the wall.
ESPN’s Week 2 KBO Power Rankings
ESPN’s KBO Power Rankings
1. NC Dinos: 10-1 (Last week: 4) — With a 6-0 week, the Dinos are tearing it up with a balanced attack. NC leads the league with 18 home runs and has KBO’s best team ERA (3.26).
2. Kiwoom Heroes: 7-5 (1) — The Heroes were fortunate to drop only one spot in our rankings after a 1-4 week.
3. Doosan Bears: 7-4 (2) — Expect some fireworks when the Bears play: Doosan leads the league in runs scored and batting average (.337) but also leads in runs allowed and has the worst ERA (6.24).
4. LG Twins: 7-4 (3) — LG ran off six consecutive victories (with a plus-23 run differential) before Sunday’s loss to Kiwoom.
5. Lotte Giants: 7-4 (5) — After a 5-0 opening week, the Giants slipped to 2-4, with Sunday’s loss to Hanwha coming on an 11th-inning, walk-off balk by Dae-woo Kim.
6. KT Wiz: 4-7 (7) — Don’t get the Wiz angry: After dropping three one-run decisions to the seemingly unbeatable Dinos, KT took out its frustration on Samsung …
7. Samsung Lions: 4-8 (8) — The Lions’ week had a promising start (series win over Kiwoom), but it ended with three losses to the Wiz by a combined score of 33-12.
8. Kia Tigers: 5-7 (9) — Preston Tucker continues to rake (a .911 slugging percentage and 1.421 OPS, both league highs), but for Kia, it has largely been Tucker or bust. He has 40% of the team’s RBIs all by himself.
9. Hanwha Eagles: 5-7 (10) — Hanwha’s pitching has been great (3.31 ERA), but the Eagles haven’t had any pop (a league-low four home runs).
10. SK Wyverns: 1-10 (6) — Losers of nine straight and holders of a minus-37 run differential on the season, the Wyverns are a hot mess, leading some to wonder if manager Kyoung-youb Youm could soon be on the hot seat. SK suffered a huge collapse at the end of last season in Youm’s first season at the helm replacing Trey Hillman, who led the Wyverns to a Korean Series title in 2018.
(Selected by Joon Lee, Alden Gonzalez and Dan Mullen)
KBO players you need to know
Eui-Ji Yang, C, NC Dinos. American pitcher Josh Lindblom was the 2019 MVP after leading the league in wins, strikeouts and innings and finishing second in ERA, but he signed a three-year, $9.125 contract with the Brewers to return to MLB. That leaves Yang as the top returning player in the MVP vote. The veteran catcher will turn 33 this month, but he hit .354/.438/.574, leading the KBO in all three categories while hitting 20 home runs in 118 games — with more walks than strikeouts. Last year was his first season with the Dinos after spending the first nine seasons of his career with the Doosan Bears.
Hyeon-Jong Yang, LHP, Kia Tigers. The league MVP in 2017, Yang finished third in the 2019 voting after going 16-8 and leading the league with a 2.29 ERA. The 32-year-old lefty fanned 163 in 184⅔ innings and allowed just six home runs. After control problems earlier in his career, he walked just 1.6 per nine innings last season, a career best.
Ha-Seong Kim, SS, Kiwoom Heroes. One of the league’s young stars, Kim hit .307/.389/.491, with 19 home runs, 38 doubles and 33 steals in 37 attempts. Now 24, Kim has been a regular since he was 19 and has been one of the league’s top all-around players. Even with a leaguewide drop in offense in 2019 after changes were made to the ball, Kim improved his OPS by 48 points, making it his best season yet.
Baek-Ho Kang, RF, KT Wiz. Just 20 years old, Kang hit .336/.416/.495 with 13 home runs in 438 at-bats as a teenager last season, although his power dropped from 29 home runs with the deadened ball. Still, his average went up 46 points, and he also showcased solid plate discipline for such a young player, making him the Juan Soto of the KBO, of sorts. Like Soto, Kang also is a sight to see at the plate, with a high leg kick even by Korean standards and some of the best bat flips in the league. He should be in the middle of the Korean lineup at the next World Baseball Classic.
Jeong Choi, 3B, SK Wyverns. One of the league’s great veteran players with 335 career home runs, Choi was a heralded high school pitcher and hitter before finally settling on hitting as a pro. He was a member of World Baseball Classic teams in 2009 and 2013 and led the KBO in home runs in 2016 and 2017. He is 33 but is coming off a season in which he hit .292/.399/.519 with 29 home runs, ranking tied for second in home runs and fourth in OPS.
Byung-Ho Park, 1B, Kiwoom Heroes. Park’s two-year stint with the Minnesota Twins didn’t go so well, as he hit .191 in 215 at-bats (although with 12 home runs) in 2016 and spent all of 2017 at Triple-A. He returned to Korea and remains the top slugger in the league, hitting 43 home runs in 2018 and leading the league with 33 in 2019.
Hyun-Soo Kim, LF/1B, LG Twins. You might remember Kim from his time with the Baltimore Orioles and Philadelphia Phillies in 2016 and 2017. He returned to Korea in 2018 and hit .362 with 20 home runs, but he fell off to .304 and 11 in 2019. He is 32 and one of the biggest names in the league, but he went from fifth in the league in OPS to 25th, so we’ll see if age is catching up to him.
Casey Kelly, RHP, LG Twins. A Red Sox first-round pick back in 2008, Kelly became a top prospect for the Padres. But he had Tommy John surgery in 2013 and bounced around the minors, with some spot appearances in the majors for the Padres, Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants, before heading to Korea for 2019. He went 14-12 with a 2.55 ERA for the Twins (although 19 unearned runs helped lower the ERA), striking out 126 in 180⅓ innings. Kelly throws a low-90s sinker that helps him get ground balls but doesn’t result in a high strikeout rate. That wasn’t enough to keep him in the majors, but it was effective enough in the KBO. Tyler Wilson, Kelly’s American teammate, also had a good season for the Twins, going 14-7 with a 2.92 ERA and similar peripherals to Kelly.
Jose Miguel Fernandez, 1B/DH, Doosan Bears. Fernandez had a cup of coffee with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018, but he signed with Doosan for 2019 and was one of the league’s best hitters, hitting .344/.409/.483 with 15 home runs while leading the league in hits. Fernandez played some second base and third base for the Angels, but the Cuban player’s glove doesn’t really work in the infield except at first base, and he lacks the power to play there in the U.S. He spent most of his time at designated hitter in 2019 for Doosan.
Jamie Romak, 1B, SK Wyverns. The Canada native got 39 plate appearances for the Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks in 2014 and 2015. Now he heads into his fourth season in the KBO as one of the top sluggers in the league. He hit .276/.370/.508 in 2019 with 29 home runs — after seasons of 31 and 43 homers. Romak brings a three true outcomes approach to the KBO: He ranked second (tied) in home runs, fifth in walks and second (tied) in strikeouts. — David Schoenfield