South Korea suffered a crushing defeat by Taiwan, with its fateful rival Japan thrashing Australia to start the race for the second consecutive championship.
While the Japanese team composed mainly of young players, Samurai fans remained strong. Japan beat Australia 9-3 in the opening round one match of Group B at the 2024 Premier 12 tournament held at Banterin Dome Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture.
Compared to the best members of the 2023 WBC, the Japanese national team has definitely formed a team of young players. Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LA Dodgers), Yu Darvish (San Diego), and Rocky Sasaki (Chiba Lotte) were all missing the first to fourth starting pitchers at the time. Although they played mainly young players, they blew up 13 hits from the first game to completely defeat Australia, which was considered a difficult opponent.카지노사이트
While Korea lost to Taiwan 3-6 in the first round, Japan started its journey to win the title for the second consecutive time with a flying start. Japan's next match is the match against Korea on Saturday. From Japan's perspective, it is the first country to win the Premier 12 tournament, and the team that advanced to the final in the second tournament, it has smoothly cleared the button for the first tournament ahead of the next tournament.
The strength of the batters and the pitching staff stood out. Haruto Inoue, a starting pitcher who was selected as a substitute due to injury, became the winning pitcher by allowing five hits, two runs and eight strikeouts during five innings. The bullpen pitchers, who followed suit, blocked four innings by allowing one run.
In the lineup, Shota Morishida hit hard with three hits and two RBIs from four times at bat, Ryoya Kurihara had two hits and one RBI, and Shugo Maki had two hits and one RBI. In addition, Japanese batters played evenly and drew double-digit hits from the first game.
The game started smoothly from the beginning. Japan opened the scoring by walking the leadoff batter in the bottom of the first inning, with no outs and runners on the first and third bases with a hit by Kaito Kozono. Japan started the game 1-0, as its follow-up hitter Tatsumi Ryosuke made a sacrifice fly.
Japan, which pulled down the opponent's starting pitcher from the first inning, drew the bases with one out with three consecutive walks in the second inning, and made it 2-0 by scoring one more point with a ground ball to Australia's third pitcher who came up. There were not many hits and timely hits from the beginning of the game, but he pressured the opponent hard by making the Australian pitcher constantly change.
In the end, Japan scored one more run in the bottom of the third inning with two hits and an opponent's wild pitch, and widened the score to 3-0. Japanese starting pitcher Inoue, who had shown good pitching in the first to third innings, gave up a hit in the top of the fourth inning, but blocked the follow-up hitter and continued his good pitching.
Japanese batters also responded to such quality pitching, and on the contrary, the Australian defense team collapsed first. Japan tied two hits to second and third bases with one out in the bottom of the fourth inning, and both runners homered and widened the score gap to 5-0.
However, Australia did not back out. The Australian batter's box, which had been completely blocked by Inoue until the fifth inning, launched a counterattack in the top of the sixth inning. Ulrich Boyar hit Inoue to draw a solo arch against the mid-wall. Australia, which pulled Inoue down with a follow-up hit, scored two more runs through Rickson Wingrove's two-run homer, and chased Japan with a gap of two runs.
However, Japan continued to score critical points after the seventh inning, perfectly securing the win. With runners on the third and one out in the seventh inning, Maki's valuable RBI single made a timely hit. In the eighth inning, Moshi Rita's two-run double to left-center and Kurihara combined for four more runs, widening the gap to 9-3 to secure the win.
In the Japanese bullpen, Yokoyama, who came second to starter Inoue, allowed one run after a home run, but the rest of Fujihira Shoma, Suzuki Sora, and Shimizu Tatsuya kept their lead by blocking one inning each.
Japan, which finished its opening game with a landslide victory in its own country, will move to Taiwan on Wednesday and play its second match against Korea on Wednesday. A large number of key players from the existing Samurai Japan are missing. However, the match was held against Australia, which confirmed that many talented NBP players are still playing.