KBO standings September 13 - KT retake first with magic number 7, but a tie still goes to Daegu

First place changed hands when the September 13 games finished. KT took a sixth straight win to reach 75-46-3, a percentage of .620, and passed Samsung, 74-49-3 at .602, by two games. Six more wins from their last 20 clinch a postseason place no matter what anyone else does, and their magic number is 7.

The streak was one sided. KT beat Lotte 16-3 in Sajik on September 10 and 7-1 at the same ground on the 11th, then beat KIA 6-2 in Suwon on the 12th and Lotte 5-2 on the 13th to make it six. Bae Je-sung, Logan, Daniel and So Hyeong-jun took the wins in turn.

The top of the table and the rule book point in different directions. Samsung lead the season series 9-4 with three meetings left, so KT winning all three still finishes 7-9. A tie for first in the regular season is broken by a single playoff game, and the home ground goes to the club that won the season series. KT are in front today, and a first place playoff would still be in Daegu.

The fifth place numbers came back in exactly the shape they held four days earlier. Doosan are 64-60-4 at .516 and still fifth, with 16 games left and a clinch number of 16. On September 9 it was 19 from 19. They went 2-1 in between, and because NC closed ground underneath them, the slack did not grow.

The arithmetic. Doosan winning all 16 finish 80-60-4, a percentage of .5714. NC winning all 22 of theirs finish 81-61-2, or .5704. Doosan are ahead by .001. One Doosan defeat makes it 79-61 at .5643, and an NC sweep clears that. That is why a clinch number of 16 sits on top of 16 games remaining.

NC will not win 22 straight. The more realistic marker is that passing Doosan's current .516 takes 15 wins from 22, a rate of .682, and that is with Doosan winning nothing at all. The clubs are 3.0 games apart, and NC's only weapon is the six extra games they hold.

The two met twice in Changwon on September 12 and 13 and split them. NC won 10-9, Doosan answered 9-2. Doosan lead the season series 9-4 with three meetings left. A tie for fifth goes to a one game playoff, and NC sweeping the remaining three still finishes 7-9, so Doosan keep the home ground. The standings keep tightening and the rule book has favoured the same club for two weeks.

Third and fourth are closer. LG beat Samsung 4-3 on September 12 and 13-5 on the 13th to hold third at 70-55-1, a percentage of .560, with KIA 1.5 games back at 68-56-2 and .548. LG lead the season series 7-4, but five meetings are still to come, and that series can settle third and fourth by itself. LG need 12 wins from 18 to clinch, KIA 13 from 18.

At the bottom, one season ended. Kiwoom are 45-83-3 and eliminated. Winning all 13 of their remaining games leaves them at .411, and fifth placed Doosan losing all 16 of theirs still finish at .457. The numbers do not meet.

The three clubs above them are alive on paper and short of time. SSG become mathematically impossible after seven more defeats, Hanwha and Lotte after nine. Hanwha have lost three in a row, having scored 19 runs on September 9 and then lost to SSG, NC and KIA in succession.

This week the fifth place race meets head on. LG and NC play twice in Changwon on September 15 and 16, and Samsung visit Doosan at Jamsil on the 16th. KT are in Daejeon against Hanwha on the 15th and 16th. For Doosan, how long NC hold up against LG now matters as much as their own results.

Every figure here is as of the end of play on September 13, 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.