Japan Tops Italy To Advance To WBC Semifinals

As they get ready to board a flight from Japan to the U.S. to ready for their semifinal game, Samurai Japan, the team that has won more World Baseball Classic titles than any other, seems poised to add a third trophy to its collection.

Five games into the tournament, Japan has looked nearly flawless. Their 9-3 win over Italy in the WBC quarterfinals looked relatively easy and overwhelming at the same time. Japan’s pitching staff has such an embarrassment of riches that after starting Shohei Ohtani, the team finished off Italy by bringing Yu Darvish out of the bullpen.

Where Team USA and others have struggled to balance the demands of getting big league pitchers work while also trying to win games, Japan was able to stay close to Ohtani and Darvish’s regular throwing schedules by tag-teaming them, knowing that even if these end up being their last pitches of the tournament, Japan still has Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto ready to go for the semifinals and finals, a pair of aces who have not been seen by the MLB players who they will face in those games.

A Kazuma Okamoto three-run home run squelched much of the drama as Japan took a 4-0 lead in the third.

Italy did rally and cut the lead to 4-2 to chase Ohtani from the game in the fifth. Dominic Fletcher provided the big hit with a two-RBI single to right field.

But Japan struck again with back-to-back RBI doubled by Murakami and Okamoto in the fifth and Yoshida homered in the seventh.

Fletcher’s impressive game continued with a home run off Darvish in the eighth, but Italy never came close to putting together another threat.

Japan heads to the U.S. with a perfect 5-0 record that doesn’t fully explain its domination so far. Japan has outscored its opponents 47-11 so far. It’s closest margin of victory is six runs.

Japan’s 1.80 ERA is the best in the tournament so far. It also leads all 20 teams in hits per nine innings (5.2), walks per nine (1.0) and strikeouts per nine (12.6). But Japan also has been dominant offensively. It’s second in the tournament in runs per game (9.4), first in on-base percentage (.475) and second in slugging percentage (.421).

Thanks to Ohtani and Sasaki, Japan has topped 100.0 mph on 29 pitches in the tournament so far. In comparison Team USA has topped 97 mph on only one pitch in the tournament so far (a 97.4 mph Daniel Bard fastball). Japan has thrown 81 pitchers in this tournament that are harder than the hardest pitch thrown by a Team USA pitcher.

Tournament baseball…