KBO final standings 2026: KIA beat LG 4-2 to finish third, LG fourth; the Wild Card round is LG vs Doosan at Jamsil on October 14, and 90-win KT goes straight to the Korean Series

On Monday, October 12, KIA beat LG 4-2. The same day Lotte won 7-4 at Doosan and KT won 4-2 at Samsung. Those three games completed the 144-game 2026 regular season. As our last update said, third place was decided by LG at KIA alone and seventh by Lotte at Doosan alone, and KT at Samsung changed no place.

Every figure here is as of the end of the regular season on Monday, October 12. Every club has zero games left, and every club's reachable finish has closed to a single place. Records and head-to-head figures come straight from the engine that builds this site's standings and team pages, and postseason dates and parks are the schedule the KBO announced on October 7. Draws are left out of the winning percentage. This piece covers only finished games and the announced schedule.

The final standings: 1. KT 90-49-5 (.648), 2. Samsung 83-58-3 (.589), 3. KIA 79-63-2 (.556), 4. LG 78-65-1 (.545), 5. Doosan 73-66-5 (.525), 6. SSG 65-74-5 (.468), 7. Lotte 64-77-3 (.4539), 8. NC 64-78-2 (.4507), 9. Hanwha 57-83-4 (.407), 10. Kiwoom 50-90-4 (.357). No two clubs finished on the same percentage, so neither the tie rules nor a one-game tiebreaker for first or fifth come into it. The five postseason clubs are KT, Samsung, KIA, LG and Doosan.

KIA is third. Beating LG on Monday left it at 79-63-2 (.556), and LG, after the loss, at 78-65-1 (.545). Of the three results our last update gave, it was the KIA win. An LG win would have made LG third, and a draw would have left KIA third. KIA won the season series 9-7 and outscored LG 70-66 over their 16 games. Third finished 1.5 games ahead of fourth. The result puts Games 1, 2 and 5 of the Semi-Playoff in Gwangju and the Wild Card round at Jamsil.

Lotte is seventh. Its win at Doosan took it to 64-77-3 (.4539), past the 64-78-2 (.4507) NC finished with on October 10. As our last update said, a Lotte loss or draw would have left NC seventh. Both clubs won 64 games, but Lotte lost one fewer. They did not finish level on percentage, so the season series, which NC won 9-7, did not come into it. SSG finished sixth, the place it was fixed in on the night of October 9, and Doosan fifth, fixed on October 7. Hanwha is ninth and Kiwoom tenth.

KT finished first at 90-49-5, a .648 percentage, eight games ahead of second-place Samsung. It scored 825 runs and allowed 649, and its run differential of +176 is the largest of the ten clubs. It went 45-24-2 at home and 45-25-3 on the road, the same number of wins in each. It did not lose in its last 10 games, going 9-0-1, and ended the season on a five-game winning streak. The only club KT lost a season series to is Samsung, 7-9; it went 11-4-1 against Doosan and 10-6 against both KIA and LG. Samsung finished second at 83-58-3 but lost its last four games, including both meetings with KT on October 11 and 12.

The postseason bracket: the Wild Card round is fourth-place LG against fifth-place Doosan at Jamsil, as LG home games, starting at 18:30 on Wednesday, October 14. LG starts with a one-win head start and goes through by winning or drawing Game 1; Doosan has to win both games. Game 2 is played only if Doosan wins Game 1, at the same park at 18:30 on Thursday, October 15. LG won the season series 11-4-1 and outscored Doosan 63-43 over their 16 games.

The Semi-Playoff (/kbo/postseason/semi-playoff, best of five) is third-place KIA against the Wild Card winner. Games 1 and 2 are at KIA's park in Gwangju at 14:00 on Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18; Games 3 and 4 at the Wild Card winner's park at 18:30 on Tuesday, October 20 and Wednesday, October 21; and Game 5 back in Gwangju at 18:30 on Friday, October 23. Games 4 and 5 are played only if needed. LG and Doosan both play their home games at Jamsil, so whichever wins the Wild Card round, Games 3 and 4 are at Jamsil. In the regular season KIA went 9-7 against LG and 7-9 against Doosan.

The Playoff (/kbo/postseason/playoff, best of five) is second-place Samsung against the Semi-Playoff winner. Game 1 is at 14:00 on Sunday, October 25 and Game 2 at 18:30 on Monday, October 26, both at Samsung's park in Daegu; Games 3 and 4 are at the Semi-Playoff winner's park at 18:30 on Wednesday, October 28 and Thursday, October 29; and Game 5 is in Daegu at 14:00 on Saturday, October 31, with Games 4 and 5 played only if needed. Samsung went 7-9 against KIA, 8-8 against LG and 7-8-1 against Doosan in the regular season. The Korean Series (/kbo/postseason/korean-series, best of seven) is first-place KT against the Playoff winner: Games 1 and 2 at KT's park in Suwon on Monday, November 2 and Tuesday, November 3, Games 3 to 5 at the Playoff winner's park from Thursday, November 5 to Saturday, November 7, and Games 6 and 7 back in Suwon on Monday, November 9 and Tuesday, November 10. Games 5 to 7 are played only if needed.

Every date is as the KBO announced it, with at least one day off between series. Games rained out move to the next day, so later dates can change. Postseason games run to a maximum of 15 innings and are drawn if still level. Regular-season head-to-head figures are past results, and this piece says nothing about how the postseason will go.

How to read these numbers. The final standings are in order of winning percentage, wins divided by wins plus losses with draws left out, and clubs on the same percentage are separated by the tie rules. This year no two clubs finished level, so the percentage order is the final order. Games behind is half the sum of the gap in wins and the gap in losses. The standings show the final table, the postseason page the bracket and each series' schedule and results, the fixtures the games, and the methodology page the working behind every figure. Each club's record is on its team page: KT, Samsung, KIA, LG, Doosan.