Tokyo: South Korea fell to Japan 11-4 in the first of their two exhibition baseball games in Tokyo on Saturday, as the wobbly bullpen failed to preserve an early lead at Tokyo Dome. It was South Korea’s 10th straight loss to Japan in a pro-vs.-pro game. The two rivals will go back at it at 7 p.m. Sunday at the dome.
According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea was held without a hit by starter Ryuhei Sotani through the first three innings, but the bats woke up against new pitcher Daisuke Moriura with two home runs in the top of the fourth. After Shin Min-jae led off the inning with a single, Ahn Hyun-min blasted a towering home run to left-center field to give South Korea a 2-0 lead. Then Song Sung-mun went back-to-back by crushing a solo home run to right field, as South Korea went up 3-0.
However, Japan punched right back to tie the game in the bottom fourth. Starter Gwak Been gave up a walk and a double, and Shugo Maki’s single to left cashed in Japan’s first run and knocked Gwak out of the game. Against new pitcher Lee Ro-un with runners at second and third, Misho Nishikawa smacked a two-run double to right that knotted the score at 3-3.
Japan further capitalized on South Korea’s shaky bullpen in the bottom fifth, blowing the game wide open with a six-spot. Kim Taek-yeon, who relieved Lee with two outs in the bottom fourth, allowed a walk and a single to start the fifth. Right-hander Lee Ho-sung came on to try to put out the fire, but pinch hitter Yukinori Kishida instead greeted him with a three-run home run to left-center field that put Japan up 6-3. Lee then surrendered a walk and a single before hitting Nishikawa with a pitch to load the bases at no out.
Sung Yeong-tak took over from Lee but promptly allowed an RBI infield single to Seishiro Sakamoto, whose dribbler back toward the mound was enough to score Taiki Ishikami. Tai Sasaki followed up with a single to left that brought home two more runners for a 9-3 Japan lead.
South Korea got a run back in the top eighth, when Sasaki, playing first base, couldn’t get a glove on a hard grounder by pinch hitter Han Dong-hee and let Shin Min-jae score from third. But then Japan tacked on two more runs in the bottom eighth, thanks to Kenya Wakatsuki’s bases-loaded single and Sasaki’s double play ball.
The South Korean bullpen allowed nine hits and eight walks, while also hitting two batters over 4 2/3 innings. South Korean manager Ryu Ji-hyun tried to look on the brighter side, saying his young pitchers — the average age for the pitching staff is 22.1 years old — can learn from this experience. “Their fastballs can work in the domestic league but they should have mixed in some breaking balls and changed speeds,” Ryu said. “It’s perhaps due to their lack of experience, and it ended up leading to a bunch of walks. But they can take the next step if they try to take lessons from this loss.”
South Korea had three hits in the three-run fourth inning, but managed three more hits the rest of the way. Ryu praised the work of Shin, who had half of the South Korean hits from the leadoff spot, and said he expected bigger things out of the scrappy player going forward. Ryu also revealed plans to shuffle his batting order for Sunday’s game, and Han Dong-hee will draw into the starting lineup after a strong pinch-hit at-bat Saturday. “The way he handled velocity was really impressive today,” the manager added.
The Korea Baseball Organization scheduled these two games against Japan, in addition to two games against the Czech Republic last weekend, to help the national team prepare for the World Baseball Classic in March next year. The three countries will all play in Pool C at the tournament, along with Australia and Chinese Taipei.