Samsung evens Korean Series vs. Nexen thanks to power surge

The Samsung Lions pounded the Nexen Heroes 7-1 on Wednesday to even the South Korean baseball championship series at one game apiece.
  
Veteran slugger Lee Seung-yuop hit a record 14th career postseason home run in the third inning and Yamaico Navarro homered for the second consecutive night at Daegu Stadium, as the Lions went off for 10 hits in Game 2 of the Korean Series.
  
The teams are now tied at one game apiece in the best-of-seven affair. After a traveling day Thursday, the teams will be back for Game 3 at the Heroes' home, Mokdong Stadium in Seoul, on Friday.
  
A day after managing just four hits, and only one over the final six innings, the Lions got to Nexen starter Henry Sosa early and often.
  
Navarro led off the game with a double, and two batters later, Chae Tae-in brought him home with a double of his own.
  
Sosa, unable to find the zone all night, walked Park Hae-min to open the second inning. He retired the next two batters but then Navarro took him over the left-center field wall to make it a 3-0 game.
  
In the third, Lee Seung-yuop joined the long ball party, drilling the first pitch he saw from Sosa over the right field wall for a two-run homer.
   
Lee, the KBO's all-time leader with 390 regular season home runs, now holds the record for postseason home runs. He'd been tied with former Doosan Bears slugger Tyrone Woods.
   
Later in the third, Lee Ji-young drove in the Lions' sixth run with a single to left, and chased Sosa from the game.
   
The Heroes got on the board in the top of the fourth, as Park Byung-ho, who had a league-leading 52 homers in the regular season, hit a solo shot off Samsung starter Yun Sung-hwan, his first homer of this postseason.
   
Yun settled down after the homer and gave up just one more hit for the rest of his night before the bullpen took over to start the eighth.
  
After a quiet stretch, the Lions added their seventh run on a Choi Hyoung-woo single in the eighth.
   
Yun picked up his fifth postseason victory by holding the Heroes to four hits and a run over seven strong innings. 
   
Sosa lasted just 2 2/3 innings and was tagged for six runs on six hits in the loss. Five of those half-dozen hits went for extra bases.
   
On the brighter side, four Nexen relievers held the Lions to a run over the final 5 1/3 innings with seven strikeouts.
   
Navarro finished a triple shy of hitting for the cycle, going 3-for-4 with a homer and two RBIs from the top of the order. He also scored three times and stole a base.
   
Samsung's Park Han-yi drew three walks to tie a Korean Series single-game record. Jin Kab-yong, the Lions' backup catcher, lined a pinch-hit double in the seventh and became the oldest player to get a hit in the Korean Series at 40 years, five months and 28 days. (Yonhap)