The Hanwha Eagles lost their 18th consecutive game on Friday, tying the Sammi Superstars (1985) for the longest losing streak in KBO history, and they seem likely to break the record on Saturday as a home underdog to Hui-kwan Yu and the Doosan Bears.

The Eagles’ offense managed to score only two late runs on Thursday despite ten total baserunners, putting their expected runs scored at around 76 during the losing streak (4.2 per game), while scoring 43 runs (2.4 per game), or 56.5% or their expected output.

The Kiwoom Heroes (+210) pulled the only moneyline upset on Thursday, bringing underdogs to 6-12 on the week after defeating Chang-mo Koo and the NC Dinos in extra innings, despite blowing a late lead.

The Lotte Giants (-111) blew an eighth-inning lead to the LG Twins (-120) but lost in extra innings, despite an expected score of 6.5 to 3.2, with 16 baserunners to the Twins’ eight — costing me both my moneyline and team total wagers after gaining substantial closing line value.

The Wiz-Lions game was rained out on Friday, forcing a doubleheader on Saturday, which could lead to some tired bullpens on Sunday.

The Twins and Wyverns bullpens should also begin to tire out over the weekend after playing their doubleheader on Thursday. And note that the Twins played extra innings on Friday while deploying their bullpen for five frames.

Probable Pitchers: KIA Tigers (Ki-young Im) vs. SK Wyverns (Seung-won Moon)

After their 6-3 win on Thursday, the KIA Tigers (18-16) hold a 3-1 advantage in the season series against SK Wyverns (11-22) by a combined score of 19-11, but neither of Saturday’s starters has faced the opposition yet this season.

Both Ki-young Im (3.38 FIP) and Seung-won Moon (3.48) FIP have had promising starts to their 2020 campaigns, and both men have pitched significantly better than in prior seasons.

FIP or Fielding Independent Pitching measures what a pitcher’s ERA would look like if the pitcher experienced league-average defense and luck.

wRC+ or Weighted Runs Created Plus takes the statistic Runs Created and adjusts that number to account for critical external factors — like ballpark or era. It’s adjusted, so a wRC+ of 100 is league average, and 150 would be 50 percent above league average.

The 27-year-old Im pitched to a 5.00 FIP over 12 appearances (eight starts) in 2019, after recording a 6.26 ERA in 2018. But he appears to be regaining his 2017 command — where he recorded a 4.06 strikeout to walk (K/BB) ratio with 5.6 strikeouts per nine innings (K/9) and a 4.04 FIP (4.98 league average).

Through six starts in 2020, Im has 28 strikeouts against four walks over 32.2 innings pitches, suitable for ratios of 7.8 K/9 and 7.0 K/BB.

Furthermore, he has surrendered a home run in only one of those six starts, a substantial improvement upon a troubling career rate of 1.2 per nine innings.

Im has an extremely deceptive sidearm delivery and needs to make the most out of subpar velocity with movement on his pitches

But when he misses, those pitches can get tagged. And when he loses his arm slot, Im can run into command problems.

His opponent, Seung-won Moon, has also taken a significant step forward this season after pitching to a 4.80 FIP in 2019, 5.04 FIP in 2018, with a career 4.89 ERA.

The 31-year-old Moon has more than doubled his career K/BB ratio (2.4 to 5.5) while increasing his K/9 from a career 6.4 to 9.1 through six starts, with at least seven strikeouts in four of his six appearances.

Like his opponent, Moon has a history of home run problems in the KBO (career 1.4 HR/9), but he has only allowed three long balls this season.

And he’s been visually impressive, with the ability to command his fastball (sits 90-91 mph) to all parts of the zone and generate whiffs with his slider and splitter