Championship or bust: slugger for defending KBO champions still feels pressure to win

LG Twins first baseman Austin Dean authored one of the greatest offensive seasons in franchise history this year, putting up a club-record 132 RBIs along with 32 home runs, 99 runs scored and a .319/.384/.573 line. The slugger even stole 12 bases. But for the second-year American player, the 2024 Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) season will be defined by how the Twins do in the postseason. Austin Dean of the LG Twins celebrates after hitting an RBI single against the KT Wiz during Game 1 of the first round in the Korea Baseball Organization postseason at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Oct. 5, 2024. (Yonhap) Austin Dean of the LG Twins celebrates after hitting an RBI single against the KT Wiz during Game 1 of the first round in the Korea Baseball Organization postseason at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on Oct. 5, 2024. (Yonhap) Dean played a huge role in helping the Twins end their 29-year Korean Series title drought in 2023. He had a home run and five RBIs in five games, with a strong .350/.381/ .550 line, as the Twins knocked off the KT Wiz. It would be tempting to assume that the Twins must not be feeling as much pressure during this postseason, with the weight of trying to win a long-awaited KBO championship off their shoulders. But Dean begged to differ. "I don't really think it changed a whole lot because everything's about winning here," Dean told Yonhap News Agency on Sunday before the Twins' 7-2 win over the Wiz in Game 2 of the first round at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. "Everybody wants us to go back to the Korean Series and defend the title and I think anything less than that is kind of a failure," Dean continued. "So there's still a lot of pressure but we've got to take it game by game and just make fewer mistakes." Dean has two hits in two games of this series so far. The first one was an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth inning of Game 1 on Saturday. Usually emotional, Dean seemed particularly fired up after that base knock, which cut the Twins' deficit to 2-1. They droppe d that game 3-2. "When you have a big crowd, you just feed off their energy like that," Dean said. "I know these guys (for the Wiz) want revenge off of us from last year in the Korean Series, and you just kind of feed off the energy of the game and how it's going. And every run matters. Those runs matter in every single situation." Source: Yonhap News Agency