Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have announced the first ever MLB “Players Weekend,” a celebration that will take place during games held from Aug. 25 to 27.The highlight of the celebration is a freeing of the uniform restrictions for players, who for that weekend will be allowed to wear custom equipment such as cleats and gloves, and will wear special jerseys that feature a player’s chosen nickname on the back, rather than their standard surname. A screen

SK Wyverns' slugger Han Dong-min has been ruled out for three months with a torn ligament in his left foot, a gruesome injury that has cut short his breakthrough Korea Baseball Organization season.Han suffered the injury when he stole second base against the NC Dinos at Incheon SK Happy Dream Park in Incheon on Tuesday. He slid feet first into the bag, and his left foot was bent awkwardly underneath.An initial MRI showed a torn ligament, and a second round of tests on Wednesday revealed the same

Don't look now. Here come the Bears.After months of mediocre play, the Doosan Bears are on the prowl for their third straight Korea Baseball Organization title, as they continue to roar up the standings in the second half of the season.On Tuesday, they extended their winning streak to a season-high eight games with an 8-1 victory over the Hanwha Eagles at Jamsil Stadium in the nation's capital. The win pushed their second-half record to 16-2-1 (wins-losses-ties).The Bears, which entered last mon

Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said in an interview Sunday that the team is preparing for a possible future without troubled infielder Kang Jung-ho, who has spent the entirety of the 2017 season unable to enter the US after his visa was rescinded due to an off-season drunk driving incident.Huntington described Kang’s situation as “an unfortunate reality,” and renewed the team’s commitment to work with Kang and try to get him back on the field.But Huntington added, “We do need

Ryu Hyun-jin continued stating his case for a rotation spot, spinning seven shutout innings in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 8-0 win over the New York Mets on Sunday. Ryu was nearly perfect in his seven innings of work, striking out eight Mets, including the first four batters he faced. He allowed only one hit, a third-inning Travis d’Arnaud single, and did not issue a walk. He won his first decision since June 17, bringing him to 4-6, while lowering his earned run average to 3.53. Los Angeles Dodger

The NC Dinos won 4-1 against the Samsung Lions on Sunday in a game that was unremarkable except for one aspect – it ended with a triple play. The occurrence of a single triple play is rare enough; only 68 triple plays have been turned in the Korean Baseball Organization’s 37-year existence. But a game-ending triple play is even rarer; Sunday’s game was only the fifth such occurrence.A triple play most commonly occurs in one of two circumstances: either a sharp ground ball hit to the third basema

Nexen Heroes right fielder Michael Choice hit a game-tying two-run home run in the eighth inning of Nexen’s Saturday game against the Lotte Giants, but Nexen ultimately fell in extra innings, 5-4. The home run was Choice’s first since joining the Korean Baseball Organization in late July.In addition to his home run, Choice singled twice to go 3-for-5, his second multi-hit game in the KBO. Including the results of Sunday’s game, Choice has appeared in 8 games for Nexen, and is currently batting .

The Kia Tigers are doing a lot of things right. At 65-35-1, they are in first place in the Korean Baseball Organization, with a comfortable five-and-a-half game lead over second-place NC Dinos. As a team, they are cumulatively hitting .305/.375/.480, and are first or second among teams in the KBO in virtually every offensive category. Statistics retrieved from STATIZ.But the emphasis on offensive firepower has not come at the expense of pitching. While Kia’s hurlers are not dominating the league

Ex-big league pitcher Anthony Ranaudo has been ruled out for the rest of the South Korean season with a hand injury, his team said Saturday.The Samsung Lions in the Korea Baseball Organization said the American right-hander underwent surgery to repair a broken right hand in New York on Thursday.Ranaudo took a batted ball to his right hand against the NC Dinos on July 27, and was diagnosed with a broken bone in the pitching hand. He left for the United States last Sunday. In this file photo taken

Perhaps the only person not concerned about the workload for Lotte Giants starter Park Se-woong may be Park himself.There has been much handwringing around the Korea Baseball Organization about the number of pitches for the 21-year-old right-hander. In his third season, and second as a full-time starter, Park has thrown 124 2/3 innings in 20 starts, well on pace to surpass his career high of 139 innings from 27 starts in 2016.It's not just the number of innings. Park has thrown 100 or more pitch

In the Kia Tigers’ 9-3 victory over the KT Wiz on Thursday night, Kia center fielder Roger Bernadina became just the third foreign player in Korean Baseball Organization history to hit for the cycle. Kia Tigers center fielder watches his home run leave the yard in a game against the KT Wiz on August 3, 2017. (Yonhap)Bernadina got the most difficult of the four hits out of the way in the first inning, lining a ball just past KT first baseman Yoon Suk-min into the right field corner for an RBI tri

It's back to the minor leagues again for San Francisco Giants third baseman Hwang Jae-gyun.The Giants demoted the slumping South Korean to Triple-A Sacramento for the second time this season on Wednesday (local time), and designated another third baseman, Conor Gillaspie, for assignment.They called up prospect Ryder Jones, who can play third base and outfield, from Sacramento while activating outfielder Jarrett Parker from the disabled list.Hwang was called up to the majors for the second time l

South Korean baseball club NC Dinos said Thursday their manager Kim Kyung-moon, recently diagnosed with a benign brain tumor, has been discharged from hospital.The Korea Baseball Organization club said Kim will be resting at his home and will remain sidelined indefinitely.Kim, 58, left last Friday's game against the KT Wiz in Suwon, some 45 kilometers south of Seoul, with dizziness and symptoms of acute indigestion. He was admitted to a hospital in Bundang, near Suwon. The Dinos then announced T

A lot of things have clicked for the Kia Tigers this season, chief among them being their offense’s record production. Kia’s fearsome lineup features three of the Korean Baseball Organization’s top 10 hitters by batting average, and five of the top 20 hitters by adjusted weighted runs created, and is a driving force behind the team’s domination of the standings, currently sitting in a comfortable first place at 63-34, five games up on the second-place NC Dinos.A major force behind the dominance

In the dog days of summer, NC Dinos outfielder Na Sung-bum has been the hottest hitter in South Korean baseball.Na leads the Korea Baseball Organization with a .378 batting average. He was batting a still-robust .347 through May. He missed a few weeks of action with a wrist injury but came back to hit .500 (13-for-26) in eight games in June.Then Na really took off in July, batting .383 for the month to raise his season average to .370. He has gone 6-for-9 in two games so far this month to get pa