This one comes down to the arms. SSG sends out a first-year starter who has been one of the more reliable young pitchers in the league, while NC hands the ball to a starter who was gone after three innings and six runs in his last outing. Add NC's road form and I think SSG has the better of the game from the first inning to the last.
Kim Min-jun for SSG is 7-3 with a 3.65 ERA over 79 innings, and he has turned in a quality start in seven of his first eight outings. He is also pitching at home, where SSG has won 8 of its last 11 and scored 59 runs in those games.
NC's Song Myeong-gi threw 66 pitches in three innings against Doosan on 10/1 and gave up eight hits. If he is short again, NC's bullpen has to cover most of the game, and that group has been used heavily. NC has also lost 8 of its last 9 away games and has given up 6.4 runs a game on the road in that stretch.
The recent scoreboards say the same thing: NC's losses tend to come with a gap, not by a single run. Its last few results read 1-6 at LG, 0-9 and 2-6 against SSG. That is why I looked at the margin and not only at who wins; the winner alone is priced too short to be worth much here.
I did not lean on the last three meetings between these teams. They ended 13-1 for NC and 6-2 and 9-0 for SSG, but the starters were different, so those scores say little about this matchup. Both teams are out of the top-five race, so there is no big motivation gap either way. The call rests on the two starters and on how each side has been playing at home and on the road.
