KBO fifth place race - Doosan did not play on September 15 and their clinch number still fell from 16 to 15

Doosan did not play on September 15. Their number changed anyway. The wins needed to clinch a postseason place on their own fell from 16 to 15, with the same 16 games still on the schedule. A club that had spent three days needing to win out picked up one defeat's worth of slack without taking the field.

LG beat NC 3-2 in Changwon, and that is the whole reason. A clinch number does not only count your own wins. It finds the point at which your total clears the best a rival can still reach if that rival wins everything left. NC lost once, NC's maximum winning percentage came down, and the bar Doosan have to clear came down with it.

In figures: NC are 59-62-2, and winning all 21 of their remaining games would leave them 80-62 for a percentage of .5634, their ceiling. Doosan going 15-1 in their last 16 would finish 79-61-4, or .5643. Doosan are ahead by .001. A day earlier that same comparison went the other way, which is why winning out was the only route.

The slack is exactly one game. Two Doosan defeats make it 78-62, a percentage of .5571, and an NC run of 21 straight wins at .5634 clears it. That is what a gap of one between a clinch number of 15 and 16 remaining games actually means.

NC will not win 21 in a row. The more useful line is this one. To pass Doosan's current .516, NC need 15 wins from their last 21, a rate of .714. The two clubs are 3.5 games apart and have three head to head meetings left. Doosan lead the season series 9-4, so if fifth place finishes level and a one game playoff is required, Doosan host it.

At the top KT keep going. They beat Hanwha 13-3 in Daejeon on September 15 for a seventh straight win, reaching 76-46-3 and a percentage of .623, with Ko Young-pyo taking the decision. Four more wins from their last 19 clinch a postseason place regardless of what anyone else does, and their magic number is 5. Four wins would put them at no worse than .5674, which is beyond what sixth placed NC can reach even by winning out.

Samsung won the same day, 7-3 over Lotte in Daegu, and sit 75-49-3 at .605, two games behind KT. The tie conditions still favour Samsung, though. They lead the season series 9-4 with three meetings left, so KT sweeping all three still finishes 7-9.

Third and fourth moved apart rather than together. KIA lost 6-3 at SSG in Munhak to fall to 68-57-2 at .544, and the gap to LG, 71-55-1 at .563, widened to 2.5 games. LG's clinch number is 10 wins from 17 games, KIA's is 12 from 17. The five head to head meetings they have left are still the fixture that decides which of them finishes third.

SSG beat KIA to reach 55-69-5 in seventh, and their tragic number is 7. Seven more defeats and the top five is impossible even if they win everything else. Eighth placed Hanwha and ninth placed Lotte are both on 8. Kiwoom have already been eliminated.

Four games are scheduled for September 16. Samsung visit Doosan at Jamsil and LG and NC meet again in Changwon. KT are at Hanwha in Daejeon and SSG are at Lotte in Sajik. For Doosan it is a day of watching two scoreboards. Lose at home and let NC win, and the one game of slack picked up on Monday disappears the same evening.

Every figure here is as of the end of play on September 15, tallied directly from the public Naver Sports schedule feed. Why a clinch number and a magic number are different numbers is set out on the methodology page. Club by club figures and remaining fixtures are on the magic number page and the team pages such as, and the tie rules and wild card format are on the postseason page.