The 24 KBO Players Missing Two Weeks for the Asian Games
South Korea's Asian Games baseball squad reported on September 14 and will not be back with their KBO clubs until September 28. The KBO schedule for September 2026 does not pause for any of it. Twenty-four players are out for two weeks of a pennant race that runs to October 7.
Everything below is as of 7 a.m. KST on September 16. Hankook Ilbo set out the plan on the 14th: two training days at Gocheok Sky Dome on the 15th and 16th, a practice game against the Armed Forces team on the 17th, then the flight to Nagoya on the 18th.
Who each club is missing
The KBO and the Korea Baseball Softball Association named the 24 at the Press Center in Seoul on June 11, with Ryu Ji-hyun as manager. Eleven pitchers, two catchers, seven infielders, four outfielders, and not one amateur among them. Selection was built around players 25 and under, or in their fourth professional season or earlier, plus three wildcard places for players 29 and under. The wildcards went to Gwak Bin (Doosan), Noh Si-hwan (Hanwha) and Moon Bo-kyung (LG).
I counted the 24 names by club. KT, Samsung, KIA, Doosan, Lotte and SSG lose three each. LG and Hanwha lose two. NC and Kiwoom lose one.
Set that against the standings. As of September 15, KT is on top at 76-46-3, Samsung sits two games back, LG seven, KIA 9.5, Doosan 13. Those five hold the postseason places, because the KBO takes the top five into its step-ladder bracket. Four of the five give up three players apiece. NC, 16.5 out overall and 3.5 behind Doosan for that last spot, gives up one, the infielder Kim Ju-won.
KT's three are the ones I would worry about if you follow them. Park Young-hyun is the closer, and Newspim reported on July 9 that he had thrown more innings than any other KBO closer with ten or more saves that season. So Hyung-jun and Oh Won-seok go with him.
The league stopped pausing for this in 2018
Korean baseball used to shut down for the Asian Games. MK Sports reported on September 5, 2018 that the KBO had decided, after talks with its member clubs and the KBSA, "not to suspend the KBO League regular season for the Asian Games, starting with the Hangzhou Asian Games in China in September 2022" (2022년 9월 열리는 중국 항저우 아시안게임부터 아시안게임에 한해서는 KBO 리그 정규시즌을 중단하지 않기로 결정했다). That came out of the public backlash over the 2018 Jakarta squad. The Hangzhou Games were then pushed back a year by the pandemic.
What the KBO does instead is stretch the rosters. Its third executive committee meeting of the year, held June 2, raised the active roster from 29 to 30 for the second half only, and moved the expanded-roster date forward from September 1 to August 25, per Sports Kyunghyang. The expansion itself shrank from five extra players to four, since one of them had already been added. Futures League clubs were allowed six foreign players instead of four.
The calendar got adjusted too. Newspim reported on August 25 that 105 games had been rebuilt into the remaining schedule, and that from September 29 a cancelled game with no reserve date left can be made up as a doubleheader the next day if the same two clubs meet again, with a rule against holding any during the Asian Games window. Supple puts the absence plainly: "national team players will be away from their clubs from September 14 to September 28" (대표팀 선수들은 9월14일부터 9월28일까지 팀을 떠나 있게 된다).
Kim Do-yeong got on the plane
The one call-up that looked like it might not happen was KIA's Kim Do-yeong. He took his own attempted bunt in the face against NC on September 9 and fractured his nasal bone, then had a reduction procedure on it. Newspim reported on the 11th that the KBO's power-strengthening committee had kept him on the roster after confirming the attending doctor's opinion that 훈련 및 경기 출전이 가능하다, training and match participation are possible.
He was out of hospital on the 11th and back in the lineup on the 13th as designated hitter against Hanwha at Champions Field, four days after the procedure. Star News has his line that night as 4타수 3안타 1볼넷 3타점 2득점, three hits in four at-bats with a walk, three RBIs and two runs. No replacement was called up and he reported with everyone else on the 14th.
Group B, the times, and where to watch
Korea drew Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong and Thailand in Group B. Japan, as host, sits in Group A with China, the Philippines and Palestine, and the Korean preview I read mentions in passing that Japan sends players from its industrial leagues (실업) rather than its professional ranks. Korea is sending a KBO closer out of a two-game race for first place in the middle of September.
Korea and Japan keep the same clock, so KST times are also the local times at the venues.
- September 21, 6:30 p.m. KST vs Chinese Taipei, Okazaki Central Park Baseball Stadium. 5:30 a.m. ET, 10:30 a.m. UK
- September 22, 6:30 p.m. KST vs Hong Kong, Toyohashi Municipal Stadium. 5:30 a.m. ET, 10:30 a.m. UK
- September 23, 12 p.m. KST vs Thailand, Okazaki. 11 p.m. ET on the 22nd, 4 a.m. UK
The 24th is a rest day. The top two from each group go into a super round on the 25th and 26th, and both medal games are on the 27th at Okazaki and Toyohashi, bronze at noon and gold at 6:30 p.m. KST. Since Korea and Japan are in separate groups, the earliest they can meet is that super round. Korea has won the last four golds and is going for a fifth.
In Korea, KBS announced on September 3 that it is covering the Games across two channels, with Park Yong-taek and Kim Tae-gyun on the baseball commentary. Naver will carry the networks' feeds on Chzzk from September 19 to October 4, per Digital Today on September 10. In India, Sony Sports Network has the rights and SonyLIV starts on September 17. For the US and Canada, Willow Sports announced on September 15 about 700 hours of free live coverage across four channels between roughly 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. ET.
Cricket is the only sport the release names. Baseball appears nowhere in it, and the Indian listing does not name baseball either. Whether the 5:30 a.m. ET first pitch on the 21st has a North American home, I could not confirm this morning.
This is a running news series, not a one-off post — new stories go up twice a day, roughly 7am and 7pm Korea time.
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