KBO playoff race 2026: Kiwoom's 8-4 win at NC cuts KIA's clinch number to 1 and Doosan's to 4; two Doosan wins over NC on Tuesday and Wednesday would settle the top five

Of the three games played on Sunday, Kiwoom's win moved the most playoff-race numbers. Kiwoom won 8-4 at NC, and Doosan's clinch number fell from 5 to 4, KIA's from 2 to 1 and NC's tragic number from 5 to 4. Hanwha won 6-2 at Lotte, cutting Lotte's tragic number from 3 to 2, and KT won 12-6 at Doosan. LG at KIA was not played: the schedule data behind this site's tables lists it as cancelled, with no reason given. Our last update set out what each Sunday game would change on its own, and the three games that were played did exactly what it said. Feeding the actual results into the engine that builds this site's tables gives exactly the three added together. Nobody clinched and nobody was eliminated.

Every figure here uses results through Sunday, September 27. Three of the four scheduled games were played, all of them now final, and LG at KIA was cancelled. There are no games on Monday, September 28. The figures for Tuesday and Wednesday results come from feeding hypothetical results into the same engine. Clinch numbers are worst-case figures that hand every rival a win in each game it has left, and the games-left counts assume a full 144-game season. None of this is a probability.

Doosan and KIA moved because NC lost. The line is NC's ceiling, the record it finishes with if it wins every game it has left. NC was 62-69-2 with 11 left, a ceiling of 73-69-2, or .514 with draws left out of the percentage. The loss to Kiwoom left it 62-70-2 with 10 left and dropped the ceiling to 72-70-2 (.507). Doosan (67-63-5, 9 left) now clears that line with four wins, at 71-68-5 (.511), and falls short with three, at 70-69-5 (.504). Before Sunday it needed five. Doosan lost to KT, but that loss did not move its number. One fewer game remains, yet four wins still make it 71-68-5, and its floor, 67-72-5 (.482), already counted every remaining game as a loss. KIA (72-58-2, 12 left), whose game was cancelled, now has a floor of 72-70-2 (.507), exactly NC's new ceiling. Finishing level does not count as clinching, so KIA needs one more win, which would make it 73-69-2 (.514). The same NC loss cut NC's tragic number to 4. In the Magic column on the magic number page, KIA went from 2 to 1 and Doosan from 7 to 6.

KT's win changed reachable finishes. It dropped Doosan's ceiling from 77-62-5 (.554) to 76-63-5 (.547), below Samsung's floor of 78-63-3 (.553), so Samsung's reachable finish narrowed from first-to-fifth to first-to-fourth and Doosan's best possible finish dropped from second to third. KT is 81-49-4, and its floor rose to 81-59-4 (.579). Hanwha's win settled the bottom of the table. Hanwha's floor rose from 54-86-4 (.386) to 55-85-4 (.393), above Kiwoom's ceiling of 54-86-4 (.386), so Kiwoom is locked into tenth even though it won. A ceiling already counts every remaining game as a win, so Kiwoom's win could not raise it. Lotte, the losing side, is 59-72-2, and its ceiling fell from 71-71-2 (.500) to 70-72-2 (.493).

SSG did not play, and its tragic number is still 2. A chaser's tragic number is set by its own ceiling and by the floor of Doosan in fifth. SSG's ceiling, 68-71-5 (.489), did not move, and neither did Doosan's floor of 67-72-5 (.482), because Doosan lost. KT, Samsung and LG are already in, and those three and KIA can all still finish first. KT and Samsung finish somewhere from first to fourth, LG from first to fifth and KIA from first to sixth.

The cancelled LG-KIA game is in neither club's record and still counts as a game left, so KIA has 12 left and LG 11. The schedule data does not show when it will be made up. The Sunday clinch our last update described for KIA needed KIA to beat or draw with LG, and with NC losing, either result would have put KIA in. With the game unplayed, every clinch and tragic number, every figure in the Magic column and every reachable finish is what an LG win would have produced. The games-left counts include games still waiting for a date, so for every club but Kiwoom the schedule page lists fewer games than the count here. KIA has 12 left, and 8 of them are on the schedule.

Tuesday, September 29, has five games: Hanwha at Samsung, KT at KIA, LG at SSG, NC at Doosan and Kiwoom at Lotte. Taken one at a time, with the other games still to be played, NC at Doosan carries the most. A Doosan win lifts Doosan's floor to 68-71-5 (.489) and drops NC's ceiling to 71-71-2 (.500). Because the two meet head to head, one game moves both at once, so Doosan's clinch number falls from 4 to 2 and NC's tragic number from 4 to 2. Two more Doosan wins would then make it 70-69-5 (.504), clear of NC's new ceiling. The same win cuts Lotte's and SSG's tragic numbers to 1, and it puts KIA in, because NC's ceiling drops below KIA's floor of 72-70-2 (.507). An NC win moves nothing: NC's ceiling already counts the win, and Doosan's floor already counts the loss. A draw takes Doosan to 3, NC to 3 and SSG to 1, puts KIA in, and leaves Lotte at 2.

KT at KIA carries KIA's clinch and the first-place race together. A KIA win lifts its floor to 73-69-2 (.514), clear of NC's ceiling of 72-70-2 (.507), so KIA is in. A draw does it too, with a floor of 72-69-3 (.511). A KT win leaves KIA at 1 and takes KIA out of the first-place picture: KIA's ceiling falls to 83-59-2 (.585), below KT's new floor of 82-58-4 (.586). KIA's reachable finish would become second to sixth and KT's first to third. LG at SSG moves only SSG's number. An LG win or a draw cuts it to 1, and an SSG win leaves it at 2. Kiwoom at Lotte moves only Lotte's. A Kiwoom win cuts it to 1, and a Lotte win or a draw leaves it at 2. Hanwha at Samsung changes no playoff-race number and no reachable finish, whatever the result.

Update, September 30: On Tuesday Samsung beat Hanwha 10-5, KT won 8-5 at KIA, SSG beat LG 7-1, Doosan beat NC 5-2 and Lotte beat Kiwoom 4-2. The five games moved the numbers exactly as set out above one at a time, and feeding the actual results into the engine behind this site's tables gives clinch and tragic numbers that are those changes added together. KIA lost to KT but clinched because Doosan beat NC: as this piece said, KIA was in on Tuesday night unless KT beat KIA and NC beat Doosan. Doosan is at 2, NC at 2, Lotte at 1 and SSG at 1, and Lotte and SSG, both winners, were not eliminated. Doosan did not clinch and NC was not eliminated. KT's win means KIA can no longer finish first, and its reachable finish is second to fifth. The Wednesday and first-place paragraphs below, read for this branch, also match the engine. One more Doosan win over NC on Wednesday settles all five places that night, and a draw leaves Doosan at 1 and a loss at 2. What each result on Wednesday, September 30, and Thursday, October 1, would change is in the next update. We ran every result of Tuesday's five games, draws included, 243 combinations in all. In all 243, Doosan's clinch number and NC's tragic number are exactly the single-game changes above added together. Lotte's and SSG's tragic numbers add up that way in the 32 combinations without a draw, but Lotte's does not when NC-Doosan and Kiwoom-Lotte are both drawn, and SSG's does not when NC-Doosan and LG-SSG are both drawn. Two draws that leave Lotte alone one at a time, for instance, together cut its tragic number to 1. KIA is in by Tuesday night in 216 of the 243, every combination except a KT win over KIA together with an NC win over Doosan. Doosan cannot clinch on Tuesday and NC cannot be eliminated: at the most both numbers fall to 2. Eliminations can begin. Lotte is out if Kiwoom beats Lotte and Doosan beats NC, and a draw in either game keeps it alive. If no game is drawn, SSG is out when LG beats SSG and Doosan beats NC. Draws add two more ways: an LG win with NC-Doosan drawn, or LG-SSG drawn with a Doosan win, also ends SSG's season. If both games are drawn, SSG survives with a tragic number of 1. The biggest swing is Doosan, Kiwoom and LG all winning: KIA is in, Lotte and SSG are out, and Doosan and NC are both at 2.

On Wednesday, September 30, the same five pairs meet again with the same home sides: Hanwha at Samsung, KT at KIA, LG at SSG, NC at Doosan and Kiwoom at Lotte. We ran all ten games of the two days together, draws included, 59,049 combinations. The two NC-Doosan games matter most. If Doosan wins both, all five places are settled on Wednesday night. Doosan would be 69-63-5, and its floor of 69-70-5 (.496) would sit above NC's ceiling of 70-72-2 (.493). Lotte and SSG, even winning both of their games, would top out at 70-72-2 (.493) and 68-71-5 (.489), below Doosan's floor as well. Doosan would be in, NC, Lotte and SSG out, and KIA in too. Of the 59,049 combinations, these 6,561 are the only ones that settle every club's playoff fate. Without two wins over NC, Doosan cannot clinch by Wednesday night. Its clinch number turns on those two games alone: a win and a draw leave it at 1, a win and a loss or two draws at 2, a draw and a loss at 3, and two losses at 4. NC's tragic number turns on the same two games, and two NC wins keep it at 4.

KIA fails to clinch by Wednesday night only if KT beats KIA twice and NC beats Doosan twice, 729 of the 59,049 combinations. If no game is drawn, Lotte and SSG are out once their own losses and Doosan's wins over NC add up to two or more, counting losses to Kiwoom for Lotte and losses to LG for SSG. If Lotte beats Kiwoom twice, it is out only if Doosan beats NC twice. Draws change the count. SSG, for one, is out if both of its games with LG are drawn, whatever else happens.

At the top, KT (81-49-4) leads, but no combination settles first place by Wednesday night. KT and Samsung keep a path to first place whatever happens. KIA's path turns on its two games with KT. KIA's ceiling is 84-58-2 (.592) and KT's floor is 81-59-4 (.579). A KT win on Tuesday ends KIA's chance that night, and if no game is drawn KIA has to beat KT twice to keep it past Wednesday. A win and a draw would also keep it, but two draws would not. LG can drop out too. If no game is drawn, two LG losses to SSG together with two KT wins over KIA would leave LG's ceiling of 84-59-1 (.587) below KT's floor of 83-57-4 (.593).

How to read these numbers. The figure used throughout this piece is the clinch number, and it counts wins: the fewest a club still needs for its place to be guaranteed while every rival wins all of its remaining games. It is the Clinch W column on the magic number page. The Magic column in the same table is a different count, own wins plus sixth-place losses and ties, so the two can differ. A tragic number counts losses the other way. Once it reaches zero, winning every remaining game would no longer be enough, and it can also shrink when a club above wins. The two sides treat a dead heat differently. On the clinch side, a rival able to finish exactly level is still a threat, which is why KIA still needs one more win although its floor equals NC's ceiling. On the elimination side, a club is out only when enough rivals are certain to finish above it, which is why an LG win on Tuesday, pulling SSG's ceiling level with Doosan's floor of 67-72-5, would not end SSG by itself. Reachable finishes follow the same rule: a club that can only draw level is not counted above you when finding your best finish, and is counted above you when finding your worst. That is why Kiwoom could still finish ninth until Saturday night, while Hanwha's floor equalled Kiwoom's ceiling. Head-to-head fixtures and the official tiebreak procedure are left out. The magic number page carries the whole table. The standings, the fixtures, the bracket and tie rules and the working behind every figure each have their own page, and the what-if page lets you set any game still to be played. Each club's answer is on its team page, Doosan, KIA, NC, Lotte, SSG, KT, LG.