安寧하십니까?

 

한국의 奮戰에도 불구하고 마지막에 웃는 팀은 일본이었습니다.  이치로 스즈키가 연장 10회초 2점 안타를 치면서 한국을 5:3으로 이기면서 3년 전에 이어 월드 베이스볼 클래식 頂上에 섰습니다.

 

 

Japan Wins World Baseball Classic

 

The World Baseball Classic belongs to Japan.  Again.  Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki hit a two-out, two-run single in the top of the 10th, and Japan beat reigning Olympic champion South Korea 5-3 Monday night to win its second straight WBC title before a boisterous crowd of 54,846 at Dodger Stadium.  The Japanese won the inaugural tournament three years ago, beating Cuba 10-6 in the finals at Petco Park in San Diego.  South Korea had tied the game at 3 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth on Lee Bum-ho's run-scoring single off Japanese closer Yu Darvish (2-1), who got in trouble by issuing one-out walks to Kim Hyun-soo and Kim Tae-kyun, the 3-4 hitters in the lineup.  Darvish struck out Choo Shin-soo before Lee lined a 1-1 pitch into left field, with pinch runner Lee Jong-wook scoring easily from second

 

To Japan and South Korea, the final of the World Baseball Classic was more than the last game of a 16-team tournament. It was the chance, the prized chance, to subdue a despised rival and be called the best team in the world. It was an opportunity for one proud country to incense another.  With a pulsating 5-3 win against South Korea in 10 innings Monday night, the Japanese won their second straight Classic and remained atop the international baseball world. Until the next tournament in 2013, the Japanese can boast about being superior to the South Koreans and any country where players pick up bats and baseballs.  Ichiro Suzuki lined a two-out, two-strike single to center field off Chang Yong Lim to drive in two runs in the 10th and ignite a celebration from Dodger Stadium to Tokyo. But Suzuki did not immediately celebrate. After hei scooted to second on the throw home, Suzuki showed no emotion. He calmly lifted his hand to call timeout.  “I believe that Ichiro’s hit is something I’ll never forget,” said Tatsunori Hara, the Japanese manager. “It’s an image that will forever be imprinted in my mind.”  The Japanese were one out from winning in the ninth, but Yu Darvish, a starter who was asked to close, could not stifle South Korea. Darvish walked two batters to put himself in a dicey position, then Bum Ho Lee lashed a two-out single to left to make it 3-3.  But Suzuki, the player who was cheered more lustily than anyone else on a raucous night, powered his team and pleased a baseball-obsessed country. Darvish was given a second opportunity to silence the South Koreans in the 10th and he produced a scoreless inning. Darvish ended the game with a strikeout and notched the win, but it was Suzuki who saved it. The South Koreans decided not to intentionally walk Suzuki, who batted with runners on second and third, and the decision doomed them.  In Sik Kim, the South Korean manager, said the team had signaled to Lim that he was supposed to pitch around Suzuki. If Suzuki did not bite at a bad pitch, Lim was supposed to walk Suzuki. But Lim apparently did not get those signs or did not obey them.  “I don’t know why the pitcher tried to pitch directly to Ichiro,” Kim said.  Suzuki diplomatically said that he was not surprised that the South Koreans pitched to him because walking him would have loaded the bases. But even Kim said that he regretted not walking Suzuki. During the memorable at bat, the usually focused Suzuki said his mind was cluttered.  “I really wish I could be in a state of Zen,” Suzuki said. “I kept thinking of all the things I shouldn’t think about. Usually, I cannot hit when I think of all those things. This time, I got a hit. Maybe I surpassed myself.”  Eventually, Suzuki celebrated, too. After the final out, Suzuki pumped his fist as he jogged in from right field. He hugged the center fielder and the left fielder, then joined a mob of teammates behind the mound. A gigantic Japanese flag was laid behind third base as a tribute to the champions.  The all-Asian championship reiterated that the rest of the world plays excellent baseball, too, and was a credit to the two teams that play in a more disciplined way than the United States. Both Japan and South Korea feature pitchers who are not immune to throwing strikes and players who are smart and aggressive. Japan was a little smarter, a little more aggressive and a little better.  “They try to play as sound, as errorless and as perfect, that word should be perfect, as perfect baseball as they can,” said Shane Victorino of the United States. “And that’s how you win ball games.”  For capturing the Classic, Japan received the $2.7 million winner’s share. Japan also earned a bonus of $400,000 for winning the second round. The South Koreans received the runner-up’s share of $1.7 million and bagged $300,000 for winning the first round. It was the fifth time Japan and South Korea played in the last 17 days. Japan won three of those games, including the most crucial meeting.  The fans rooting for South Korea and those cheering Japan competed on every pitch, too, turning Dodger Stadium into an international shout-a-thon. The 54,846 fans chanted, banged ThunderStix and waved flags. Manny Ramírez could hit a winning homer in the playoffs and it probably would not be as boisterous here as it was for Japan against South Korea.  Hisashu Iwakuma, a lean right-hander with a nasty forkball, was mostly responsible for guiding Japan to a 3-2 lead as he held the South Koreans to two runs while pitching into the eighth. At 6 feet 3 inches and 169 pounds, Iwakuma looked as thin as a flag pole as he stood on the mound. To the South Koreans, Iwakuma resembled an impenetrable pitcher for most of Monday night. 

Still, the game was tied, 1-1, until Japan went ahead in the seventh in a predictably simple fashion. Japan used a single, a stolen base, Suzuki’s bunt single and Hiroyuki Nakajima’s single to make it 2-1. Akinori Iwamura added a sacrifice fly in the eighth to give Japan a 3-1 lead.  The South Koreans nicked Iwakuma for a run in the eighth to chisel their deficit to 3-2. Iwakuma was 21-4 with a 1.87 earned run average for the Rakuten Eagles in Japan last season and won the equivalent of the Cy Young Award. He was in line for the win until Darvish failed to stop the South Koreans in the ninth.  Shin Soo Choo, who is the only major leaguer on South Korea’s team, had homered off Iwakuma to tie the score in the fifth, 1-1. Choo reached down and drilled a pitch that was near his calves. But that was one of Iwakuma’s only blemishes on a superb night. Michihiro Ogasawara singled in Japan’s first run in the third.  The rivalry between Japan and South Korea extends a lot deeper than who scores the most runs in a game. There is still lingering friction between the countries because Japan invaded Korea and officially annexed it in 1910. The Japanese did not leave until after World War II ended in 1945.  Although Japan left more than six decades ago, there are still Koreans who remember those years or who have been told stories about the experience. The countries have a relationship, but it is more a grudging association than a friendly rapport.  Now the Japanese and the South Koreans will have to wait four years before they potentially meet in another Classic. The wait will undoubtedly feel much longer for the South Koreans. But the Japanese will savor every day between now and then because they can call themselves the best in the world. Suzuki made sure of that.

 

 

이번 대회 전체 소식을 영문으로 올립니다.

 

 

Japan Eliminates U.S. in World Baseball Classic

 

Michihiro Ogasawara after he scored in the fourth inning. Japan scored five runs in the fourth, jumping out to a 6-2 lead.

 

The mind-set of Japanese baseball players is to place the team ahead of the individual.  That is especially true in the World Baseball Classic, where team and country are synonymous. The Japanese are proud players who believe that as long as they work hard, they can beat anyone.  The team-first players from Japan worked hard to beat the United States, 9-4, in the semifinals Sunday night at Dodger Stadium and are one win away from winning the tournament for the second straight time. Japan will play South Korea on Monday night for the championship.  When Tatsunori Hara, the Japanese manager, discussed the tournament last January, he said he had “high expectations” and wanted players “who won’t sully the title of samurai.” So far, the Japanese players have embellished their title of samurai with their typically precise brand of baseball.  “They just play baseball,” Jimmy Rollins said. “They don’t worry about the big things. They just do things right.”  The Japanese players gathered in mid-February to begin their march toward another world title, or about two weeks before the United States had its first practice.  Every time the Japanese played, they played as a team. Meanwhile, the Americans, who were hampered by player injuries and player apathy, sometimes seemed like less of a team and more of a collection of players.  Still, the loss deflated those players. Mark DeRosa said the Americans would “go home disappointed” because they “expected to win this thing.” Derek Jeter looked the way he looks whenever the Yankees have disappeared in October. Jeter was asked if baseball was still America’s game, which he believed it is.  “I wouldn’t go around and call it somebody else’s game just because we lost the game tonight,” Jeter said. “Like I said before, anything is possible in one game.”  In one game, one crisply played game, the Japanese succeeded and created a result that Hara said “will remain in history.” Hara reminded reporters that the United States was the birthplace of baseball, so any win against the country that created the sport had special significance for the Japanese.  Daisuke Matsuzaka knew the American hitters and they knew him because his full-time job is as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Japan believed that mutual knowledge would help Matsuzaka, who won the finale in the 2006 Classic.  Despite an uneven performance in which Matsuzaka allowed two runs in four and two-thirds innings, Japan prevailed before 43,630 fans.  The Japanese rolled in part because their relievers were impressive in following Matsuzaka. DeRosa had a two-run double off Takahiro Mahara to slice the deficit to two runs in the eighth. DeRosa scampered to third when the ball was misplayed in left field. But Mahara rebounded to strike out pinch-hitter Evan Longoria and retired second baseman Brian Roberts on a tapper back to the mound.  Japan, still working hard, rebounded with three runs in the ninth.  Shane Victorino, a switch-hitter, was poised to pinch-hit in the eighth, but Manager Davey Johnson recalled him and used the right-handed-hitting Longoria against the right-handed Mahara. Johnson said he wanted Longoria in that spot because he is “an R.B.I. man.” A two-run homer would have tied the game. The strategy failed.  “It’s a decision he makes as a manager,” Victorino said. “There’s nothing that can be done. He probably had a gut feeling on something he wanted to do.”  That was not Johnson’s only debatable decision. Johnson selected Roy Oswalt to start ahead of Jake Peavy, and he stayed with Oswalt when he got into trouble in the fourth. With the United States ahead, 2-1, Oswalt fizzled quickly.  After Japan had two singles to begin the fourth, Kosuke Fukudome hit a ball between the first- and second-base hole. Roberts, who had opened the game with a homer, glided to his left, but did not field the ball cleanly. It bounced off his glove for an error, skipped into right field and enabled Japan to tie the score, 2-2.  Kenji Johjima’s sacrifice fly gave the Japanese a 3-2 lead, but Johnson did not have relievers warming up.  Oswalt was laboring, and this was an elimination game. But Johnson did not manage as if it were the decisive game in a seven-game series, with the Americans a couple of hits away from being in a perilous position.  Japan produced those hits soon. Akinori Iwamura doubled, Munenori Kawaski had a run-scoring single and Hiroyuki Nakajima drilled a run-scoring double that dumped the Americans into a 5-2 ditch. Oswalt slumped on the mound. That is when Johnson replaced Oswalt, a call that clearly appeared to be too late.  “I thought he was throwing the ball all right,” Johnson said.  Johnson said he wanted John Grabow to replace Oswalt to face Iwamura, but because of the chilly weather, Grabow was slow to get ready. The Americans could have instructed Oswalt to make some pickoff tosses to kill time for Grabow, but they did not. By the time Grabow replaced Oswalt, the Americans were bruised.  “I should have just got him up earlier than I did,” Johnson said of summoning Grabow.  There is a formula for trying to defeat Matsuzaka: force him to throw a lot of pitches. Matusazka does not want to throw consistent strikes.  He would rather have batters swing at balls. Matsuzaka has a solid enough repertory to challenge hitters, but he wants to challenge them by making them hit mistakes.  Because of Matsuzaka’s deliberate approach, patient hitters are often the most effective hitters against him. After Matsuzaka needed six pitches to notch two outs in the third, Rollins showed some patience. Rollins fouled off a pair of 2-2 pitches before slapping a single to center.  With David Wright batting, Rollins took advantage of Matsuzaka’s measured movements from the stretch position and stole second. Like Rollins, Wright also worked the count against Matsuzaka. On a 3-2 count, Matsuzaka refused to throw Wright a fastball and instead hung a slider. Wright clubbed it to center for a run-scoring double that gave the United States a 2-1 lead.  But the one-run lead did not last too long. Oswalt was blitzed in the five-run fourth. It was an inning when the Japanese played like a team desperate to advance to the championship game and the United States played like a team that forgot it was an elimination game.  Japan, the team, not a bunch of individuals, could win the Classic on Monday night. If the Japanese win, they will follow Japanese tradition and toss Hara, their manager, high in the air to celebrate. It would be a victory for the team, which would be an even bigger win for the country.

 

Despite Recent Play, South Korea Largely Shut Out of Majors

 

Shin-Soo Choo waited for the question to be translated from English to Korean, nodded, then waited some more. Choo, a South Korean outfielder who plays for the Cleveland Indians, could not explain why there were not more South Koreans in the major leagues. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Choo said. “I don’t know.”  After South Korea annihilated a Venezuelan team stocked with major league players, 10-2, in the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic on Saturday night, that question was repeated over and over. As disciplined and as skilled as South Korea has been in international tournaments, it seems incongruous that there were only four South Koreans in the majors last season.  The South Koreans, who are one victory from winning the Classic, won the gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and finished third in the inaugural Classic in 2006, have proved that they can succeed against some of the best players in the world. About a minute after Choo was stumped by the question, he analyzed where his South Korean teammates ranked on the world stage.  “In terms of their skill level, I believe there is no major difference between the major leagues and our Korean players,” he said. “Our Korean players, I hope, will be able to advance to the major leagues in great number, and I hope they will do so in the future.”  Paul Weaver, the director of international scouting for the Chicago Cubs, believes that there is a wealth of talent in South Korea and expects more South Koreans to be signed in the United States. He has scouted in the country for the past two years, which has led to the Cubs’ adding four South Koreans who are in spring training.  Weaver said the South Korean pitchers were attractive because they are strike-throwing machines. Suk-Min Yoon, a 22-year-old who pitched six and a third innings against Venezuela, walked one. In addition, Weaver praised the physically imposing South Koreans for being fundamentally sound. They do not simply field grounders, they attack them. They do not just take extra bases, they snatch them.  “We’re excited about the talent level and general overall play in Korea,” Weaver said. “I think they have been good for a while. They just haven’t had a lot of people who have come out and gotten a lot of exposure.”  With every trip that Weaver makes to South Korea, he said he had noticed more major league scouts sitting beside him at games. Weaver mentioned that the South Koreans recently won the 18-and-under World Championship, a sign that the talent stretches to the youth level.  Major league teams interested in signing South Koreans face an unusual obstacle; each man is required to serve 18 months in the military. A team that wants to sign a player who has not yet served is forced to predict that he will be the same player in a year and a half. (The South Korean gold medalists from Beijing had their military requirement waived.)  There have been only 13 major leaguers who were born in South Korea. From that group, pitcher Chan Ho Park, who has 117 career victories, has had the most impact. To show how minimal South Korea’s overall impact has been,  Choo’s 98 hits and 66 runs batted in for the Indians last season were the most ever in those statistical categories by a South Korean-born player.  Because the few South Koreans who have reached the majors have not had memorable careers, some teams have doubted that their success in international competition can translate to the majors.  The Korea Baseball Organization first formed a professional league in 1982, and it does not have as much talent or as much depth as the Japanese leagues.  “There hasn’t been anybody other than Chan Ho who has been an impact type player,” Weaver said. “I think that could change. If some more of their kids are signed, I think that could change.”  Yongsuk Wong, a sportswriter for Korea Daily, said that the South Koreans “do not feel inferior to” Choo, the only major leaguer on the roster. Wong said Tae Kyun Kim, 26, a first baseman who hit a two-run homer off Carlos Silva on Saturday, and three pitchers — Yoon; Kwang-Hyun Kim, 20; and Hyunjin Ryu, 21 — were among South Korea’s most appealing players. Scouts have noticed them and will continue monitoring them as South Korea plays in the title game on Monday night against the United States or Japan.  “If they win it all, I think they will be viewed differently,” Wong said.  To many, the South Koreans are already viewed differently. After Venezuela Manager Luis Sojo watched the South Koreans batter his club, he was asked why there were not more of them in the majors.  “There will be,” Sojo said. “It surprised me that there aren’t that many Koreans in the big leagues, but I think, from now on, there will be.”

 

Inside Pitch

The other South Korean players in the major leagues last year were pitchers Cha Seung Baek with Seattle and San Diego, Chan Ho Park with the Dodgers, and Jae Kuk Ryu of Tampa Bay.

 

 

With Confidence, South Korea Rolls to Title Game

 

The South Korean baseball players have a definite swagger, a way of performing that oozes confidence. They wear flashy blue, red and white uniforms, they wield orange bats and they puff out their chests a bit more than most players. They expect to succeed. 

Watching the South Koreans humiliate Venezuela, 10-2, in the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic on Saturday night was like watching the varsity stomp the junior varsity.  The South Koreans ran the bases aggressively, they hammered baseballs out of Dodger Stadium, they made no glaring mistakes and they smothered the Venezuelans.  By the time Carlos Silva had pitched to six batters, the Koreans already had a 5-0 lead. After Silva left with one out in the second inning, the cushion had grown to seven runs. The South Koreans have a swagger, but once they snatched a sizable lead, that swagger graduated into an unmistaken strut. The South Koreans knew they were jettisoning the Venezuelans.  Shin-Soo Choo of the Cleveland Indians, who is the only major leaguer on South Korea, belted a three-run homer in the first and Tae Kyun Kim added a two-run shot in the second. Both home runs came against Silva, who started over the more intimidating Félix Hernández. Before the homer, Choo had one hit in the Classic.  Now that the South Koreans annihilated Venezuela, they will face the winner of Sunday night’s United States-Japan game in the championship Monday night. The South Koreans won the gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and they are one victory from winning another world tournament.  “This Korean team, they showed they are here to win,” Venezuela Manager Luis Sojo said.  Sojo chose Silva over Hernández because he thought that Silva could pitch longer. Sojo said Silva “was the man who has the responsibility to give us that win.”  But Silva did not come close to winning; he departed after permitting six earned runs in one and a third innings. Hernández, Sojo’s best pitcher, did not uncork one pitch in this elimination game.  As slick as the South Koreans were in cutting off balls in the gap and making crisp cutoff throws, the Venezuelans were just as sloppy on routine plays. The Venezuelans started a lineup of major leaguers, but they committed four errors in the first four innings. The South Koreans were clearly not intimidated by the players they see on television, delighting a pro-Korean crowd of 43,378.  “Many of them are major leaguers, and they have important positions in the major leagues,” South Korea Manager In-Sik Kim said. “From April to October, every day we watch the major league teams playing, so we have seen then many times.”  The Venezuelans had not seen much of the South Koreans, having played them twice since 2002 in amateur competition. Now Sojo, Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera and the rest of the Venezuelans have seen too much of a team that plays sound baseball and usually pounces once opponents make errors.  Suk-Min Yoon limited the powerful Venezuelans to two runs while pitching into the seventh.  Before the game, Sojo said that winning the Classic would be the “biggest win of my career,” bigger than any of the five World Series rings he has won. Sojo was criticized at home when the Venezuelans were eliminated in the second round in the inaugural Classic in 2006. He will undoubtedly be criticized again, especially because he bypassed Hernández.  “When you perform, you’re the greatest,” Sojo said. “When you play like garbage, you get crushed.”  When Yong Kyu Lee walked on a 3-2 pitch to lead off the game, he did his best Pete Rose imitation and sprinted to first. Keun Woo Jeong followed with a soft fly ball to right field. Abreu, who is no defensive artist, settled under it, tried to catch the ball chest-high and dropped it.  Instead of retrieving the ball and firing a bullet to second for a force out, Abreu compounded the problem by lofting a one-bounce throw to second. The ball skidded away from Marco Scutaro and left the South Koreans with runners on first and second. After Hyun Soo Kim hit a looping single to left, Lee read the ball perfectly and hustled home. There was no throw, but he slid head first anyway.  As the South Koreans pelted Silva, their vocal fans banged ThunderStix together in rhythmic fashion and chanted “Ko-re-a” in their native tongue. Silva looked shaky while fielding a grounder from Dae Ho Lee. He collected an out, but the second run scored.  Choo, whose name was misspelled on two roster sheets, hit .309 with 14 homers and 66 runs batted in for the Indians last season. In six career at-bats against Silva, Choo had one hit. Choo seemed pretty comfortable versus Silva, though, as he ripped a 93-mile-per-hour fastball over the center-field fence for a three-run homer.  The Koreans kept smacking Silva in the second. With a runner on second, Tae Kyun Kim lined a two-run homer. When Kim returned to the dugout, the video scoreboard showed him chewing on a cup. The fans howled. Kim noticed the ruckus so he walked to the top step, lifted his arms and pumped them toward the fans. He had a swagger. All the South Koreans did.

 

Unknowns on Rosters May Determine W.B.C. Title

 

The veteran Daisuke Matsuzaka, right, or the 22-year-old phenom Yu Darvish may start for Japan against the United States.

 

The lure of the young, made-for-foreign-television World Baseball Classic centers on matchups between fresh and unfamiliar teams — filled with exotic players never seen before by fans, and often not even by their opponents.  The semifinal round at Dodger Stadium, which began with South Korea playing Venezuela on Saturday night and continues with Japan playing the United States on Sunday, is testing how roster novelty does more than tempt the partisan palate. It may dictate the eventual tournament winner.  In deciding which pitcher to start against the United States, Japan Manager Tatsunori Hara struggled more than most major league fans would expect. He could go with Daisuke Matsuzaka, in large part because of his experience, or the 22-year-old phenom Yu Darvish, for the opposite reason.  Matsuzaka has been a big-game legend in his home country since his high school days, when he won a 17-inning, 250-pitch complete game in the playoffs, then threw a no-hitter for the championship. He beat powerhouse Cuba during the 2004 Olympics, threw a 1-0 14-strikeout gem for the Seibu Lions to open the 2006 Pacific League playoffs, and won three games — including the final over Cuba — to lead Japan to the 2006 Classic title.  Moreover, Matsuzaka has pitched in seven major league postseason games for the Boston Red Sox the last two years. But that seasoning, strangely, could make him vulnerable.  United States hitters know Matsuzaka well — and have battered him to boot. Shortstop Derek Jeter is 4 for 12 with two home runs against Matsuzaka. Second baseman Brian Roberts is 6 for 12 with three walks. Center fielder Curtis Granderson is 4 for 9 with a home run.  David Wright, who as a Met has never faced Matsuzaka, said, “I think we’ll be leaning on the A.L. East guys a lot.”  Should Matsuzaka falter, Darvish could provide early firepower out of the bullpen. Darvish, almost as good as the young Matsuzaka once was, is leading the W.B.C. with 13 strikeouts and will be an unfamiliar sight for American hitters.  The singles-and-speed Japanese lineup will go up against the Houston Astros ace Roy Oswalt, who is starting for the United States over the San Diego Padres’ Jake Peavy. As well known as Oswalt is, Japan’s three regulars from the major leagues — right fielder Ichiro Suzuki and catcher Kenji Johjima of the Seattle Mariners and second baseman Akinori Iwamura of the Tampa Bay Rays — have rarely faced him.  “The thing about Japan is they have two or three hitters that play in the big leagues, so we have a little bit of a scouting report on them,” Oswalt said Friday in Los Angeles.  Saturday’s semifinal had relatively unknown South Korea playing Venezuela, a team filled with accomplished major leaguers like Magglio Ordóñez and Miguel Cabrera. Neither team had experience against the other’s starting pitcher — South Korea’s Suk-Min Yoon and Venezuela’s Carlos Silva. But Venezuela had less of an idea of what it was getting into than did the players from South Korea’s professional league, which is not exactly nightly television fare.  “We didn’t meet them directly, but we saw them through the TV different times,” South Korea Manager In-Sik Kim said through an interpreter. “Starting from April to October, every day we watch the major league teams playing.”  Fundamentally sound South Korea was the surprise of the inaugural 2006 Classic by reaching the semifinals, and it stunned all comers with a 9-0 record to win the gold medal in the Beijing Olympics last year.  Only two of the players on South Korea’s roster for the Classic have had even short stints in the major leagues. They are, however, experienced from past international tournaments.  And several grew up together in Seoul, while the slugger Dae-Ho Lee, the table-setting second baseman Keun-Woo Jeong and outfielder Shin-Soo Choo played on the same youth teams in Busan.  “I think that this helps us play well as a team,” said Kim, whose team graciously, and perhaps coyly, has said after many victories that the other team was more talented. “The players know each other very well and they get along. They are very close as a group.”  At first glance, the winner of Saturday’s game would appear to have an advantage over the Sunday winner for Monday’s final because of the tournament’s pitching restrictions. Relievers who throw 30 to 49 pitches in a game can usually return after one day of rest, but any pitcher who throws that many on Saturday will be ineligible on Monday, so Sunday’s winner will not be at a disadvantage. Bullpen strategy will take center stage in any close game because of the effect it could have on the final.  Two injury substitutions could also play significant roles Sunday. Japan first baseman Shuichi Murata severely pulled a hamstring while rounding first base on Thursday night against South Korea, and was replaced by Kenta Kurihara of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. The United States replaced third baseman Chipper Jones on Thursday with Evan Longoria, last year’s American League rookie of the year.

 

 

Whispering Farewell to Cuba’s Dominant Past

 

Cuba’s team had reached the final of 50 straight major international tournaments, and won a staggering 43 of them. But that streak ended Thursday.

 

As Cuba’s beaten ballplayers stood quietly on the top step of their dugout, fully aware of their World Baseball Classic life ticking away, you could almost see the ghosts of the national team’s legendary past standing behind them. They emerged from the fog like White Sox out of a cornfield.  Omar Linares, Víctor Mesa, Omar Ajete, Antonio Pacheco — they and so many more had over 50 years built one of the most remarkable streaks in modern sports: Cuba’s team had reached the final of 50 straight major international tournaments, and won a staggering 43. Not since 1959 had Cuba been bounced from a major event before the final game, thrilling the nation and its leader, Fidel Castro, whose baseball team was as much about honor as sport.  When the streak finally ended late Wednesday night, with Japan beating Cuba, 5-0, to take the last of four berths in the W.B.C. semifinals that start this weekend (the other berths went to the United States, Venezuela and South Korea), the Cuban players left the dugout quietly, almost meekly.  But those with an appreciation for this little corner of the baseball world could almost see the players’ ancestors running back onto the field, in those trademark all-red uniforms, for a final all-star game to honor the era just ended.  “Omar Ajete, he was one of the most dominant left-handers you’ll ever see,” Mike Brito, a longtime scout for the Dodgers, said of the Cuban closer from one decade ago. “Germán Mesa, he was so close to Ozzie Smith at shortstop. He could do everything just like Smith.”  Orrin Freeman, a Florida Marlins scout, still wonders what the cannon-armed Lázaro Valle would have become had a blood clot not intervened. (“He was about the same age as Roger Clemens, 94 to 98 fastball, an overmatching slider and an intimidator,” Freeman said.) Orestes Kindelán was all but Harmon Killebrew, Antonio Muñoz another Willie McCovey.  The most revered of all is always Linares, a third baseman who stood out among his countrymen throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Freeman called Linares a surefire Hall of Famer. Mets General Manager Omar Minaya compared him to Alex Rodriguez, adding that Linares could easily have played shortstop if Cuba’s Mesa was not already one of the best on the planet.  Scouts drooled over Linares. The Dodgers’ Brito said a Japanese team offered Cuba the equivalent of $10 million to sign him. The United States trade embargo left him off-limits to major league scouts, but one of the juiciest rumors of the late 1980s was that the Toronto Blue Jays and their ingenious general manager, Pat Gillick, were plotting to sign Linares and have him play only home games in Canada.  “You’d hear about the Cuban guys, and you’d think, ‘I wonder what this guy would look like in a Padre uniform, or a Dodger uniform’ — you kind of dream,” the Hall of Fame hitter Tony Gwynn said before a W.B.C. game this week. “The ego in you says that Cuba isn’t as good. But as you get older you realize there are guys in other countries who can play as well as you did.”  Cuba began pummeling international competition almost as soon as Castro took power in 1959. His team won the 1961 Amateur World Series and finished at least first or second in every one of 49 major international tournaments it had entered since; only boycotts like those of the 1984 and 1988 Olympics kept Cuba from any final game.  Helping Cuba dominate, of course, was how its grown men generally played the best collegians from other nations, particularly the United States. The former major leaguer A. J. Hinch, now a young executive with the Arizona Diamondbacks, caught for the United States every summer from 1991 to 1996, including in two Olympics, and remembers gaping at the mighty Cubans. His team lost every time.  “It was like the junior varsity playing the varsity,” Hinch recalled. “They were bigger, faster and more refined. The face of international baseball was Cuba. Every international tournament revolved around the games against Cuba.”  Minaya said that as he watched Cuba win game after game, year after year, “I felt sad for them.”  “After a while, when they were beating up on everyone, it was no competition for some of those guys,” Minaya said. “The game itself lost because those talents were not displayed on a level playing field.”  Cuba’s suffocating dominance began to erode in the 1990s as some of its top pitchers — first René Arocha, then Liván Hernández and Orlando Hernández — defected and signed with major league teams. A few years after he struck out 10 Baltimore Orioles in eight shutout innings of a 1999 exhibition game, José Contreras was gone, too.  In 2000, Ben Sheets, still in the Milwaukee Brewers’ minor league system, stunned the amateur baseball world by shutting out Cuba, 4-0, to give the United States the gold medal in the Sydney Olympics in Australia. Cuba rebounded to win the gold medal in the 2004 Athens Games, but faltered again in the 2008 gold medal game in Beijing, this time to South Korea.  Baseball has been dropped from the Olympics, at least until 2016. The World Baseball Classic, which features a sizable portion of top players from the major leagues, has allowed other countries to put their best against Cuba’s best. Cuba made it to the final of the inaugural W.B.C. in 2006 before losing to Japan in the final, 10-6.  And this week Cuba was thoroughly embarrassed by Japan. It lost by 6-0 on Sunday, then by 5-0 on Wednesday.  “They were much better than us,” Cuba Manager Higinio Vélez conceded graciously in a statement afterward. He added: “They do deserve to go on to the finals. So the only thing left for us to do is to continue to fight for our great game, baseball.”  Few would argue that the game is not greater for other countries having caught up to Cuba after 50 long years. But a remarkable era ended on Wednesday night. At least the ghosts returned to say goodbye.

 

 

Venezuela 10, U.S.A. 6

Wright Plays Through Pain as Depleted U.S. Falls

David Wright fouled a ball off his left foot in the first inning Wednesday night, hopped around the batter’s box and looked to be in a lot of pain. The looks were not deceiving as Wright later explained that driving the ball into his big toe caused significant discomfort.  When Wright grounded out to end the inning, he jogged to first base. When Wright moved across the diamond to play third base, he limped. Before the second inning started, Wright put his hands on his knees and lowered his head. Wright’s body language seemingly begged for someone to examine him or remove him from the game.  The Unites States, which is losing players to injuries about as often as it plays games, did not send a trainer on to the field to check on Wright. Maybe Manager Davey Johnson was concerned that Wright would be painfully honest about how much pain he felt in his aching toe.  Because the Americans had only one reserve player in catcher Brian McCann, Wright knew that he had to deal with the pain. He did, barely. Wright played all nine innings with a cracked toenail as Venezuela tamed the United States , 10-6, in the World Baseball Classic at Dolphin Stadium.  “There is a difference between being hurt and being banged up,” Wright said. “This is banged up.”  Less than five minutes after the Americans lost, Wright, who was still wearing his uniform, walked about 150 feet from the clubhouse to an X-Ray room. The X-Rays were negative. Wright had a bruised toe and a cracked nail, but he stressed that he would not miss any games. The United States plays Sunday, and Venezuela plays Saturday. Their opponents are not yet determined.  Before getting the X-Ray results, Wright acknowledged that he wondered if he had broken his toe. If Wright had done the same thing in spring training, he said that he probably would have left the game. But, if Wright had done it during the regular season, he said that he would have continued playing.  The Mets surely would have been more assertive in examining Wright after he fouled the ball off his foot. Johnson first asked Wright how he was feeling when Wright returned to the dugout in the second. Then Wright said Johnson asked him every inning after that.  “I felt good enough to stay out there,” Wright said.  If the United States ’ bench was not so thin, Johnson said that he would have replaced Wright.  “Well, under normal circumstances, I’d have taken him out,” Johnson said. “I asked him how he is doing. I asked him. We’re not going to play somebody out of position. He basically tore off the toenail on his left foot, so he’s not a happy camper right now.”  On a day where Kevin Youkilis (ankle injury) became the fourth player to leave the American team in the second round because of an injury, Wright almost made the foursome a quintet. Wright joked that the United States players had “to stop getting hurt.”  But, of course, the Mets would not think it were funny if Wright continued playing with a damaged toe so he did not put Johnson in a compromising position. No manager wants to use his only backup catcher, but Johnson had lineup options if he wanted to protect Wright. Johnson could have moved Chris Iannetta to third and used McCann at catcher. Wright never made Johnson feel that was necessary.  “I thought the best thing would be to go out there and suck it up,” Wright said.  The scene of an injured Wright moving gingerly around the field contrasted with the scene from Tuesday. The first American players to reach a giddy Wright and maul him, in a celebratory way, were Derek Jeter and Youkilis. Shane Victorino was a step behind them. It was a frantic scene after Wright’s two-run single catapulted the United States to a 6-5 win over Puerto Rico .  So, one of the best players on the Mets was engulfed by the most popular player on the Yankees, the most versatile player on the Boston Red Sox and the grittiest player on the Philadelphia Phillies. The enemies were teammates on a memorable night, rolling around in the infield dirt.  The Americans have been hurt by injuries and by disinterest, some from fans and some from players, during the Classic.  But tournament officials should use the picture of Wright buried in the red, white and blue uniforms of players who are normally his adversaries as a recruiting tool.  “If you can’t get excited about last night’s game and what we were able to accomplish,” Wright said, “you don’t enjoy the game of baseball.”   Wright is a dream player for the executives who market the Classic because he is a respected player who has been extremely vocal about how much he wants to compete in the event. When Wright was asked what he would tell players about the Classic, he quickly said, “You got to do it.”   If the 30 general managers were privately asked if their players should play in the Classic, all 30 would undoubtedly say they would rather have them abstain. The general managers need healthy players to have their strongest teams and to maintain their job security. No triumphant picture featuring Wright with some of his rivals is going to eliminate the possibility of injuries.  Still, Wright said that the players on the American team were the players who “really, really want to be here.” Wright has said he wanted to return for the Classic in 2013.  “If we had a sign up sheet right now, you’d have 28 guys in there who are banged up, injured or not, that would sign up again,” Wright said. “And I would be the first one on that list.”  While Wright had a routinely solid season with the Mets by hitting 33 homers, driving in 124 runs and batting .302, he was also criticized for not producing in critical situations. Wright, who hit .243 with men in scoring position, said Tuesday’s at-bat will contribute to his remaining relaxed in important at-bats this season.  “We’re talking about being up with the game on the line,” Wright said. “When you wear those three letters across the front your chest, you have quite a bit of pressure and weight on your shoulders. I think that can only help.”  Before Wright helped the United States defeat Puerto Rico in dramatic fashion, Wright received a text message from Alex Rodriguez. Wright said that Rodriguez, who is rehabilitating from hip surgery in Colorado, wished Wright, another New York third baseman, luck.  After the game, Wright received an avalanche of e-mails and text messages from almost everyone except Rodriguez. The one that meant the most came from Daniel, Wright’s 17-year-old brother.  “My brother sent me a text that said, ‘This is, by far, the coolest thing you’ve ever done,’” Wright said.  One night later, Wright probably impressed his little brother again. He helped a depleted team by playing nine innings with a broken toenail. The cool older brother played with a lot of pain.

 

Japan Defeats Korea, Setting Semifinal Games

 

Japan beat Korea 6-2 Thursday night to win Pool 1 of the World Baseball Classic in San Diego, setting the matchups for semifinal games this weekend in Los Angeles.  Korea cost itself a day of rest with the loss — it will play Venezuela on Saturday, with Japan playing the United States on Sunday. The winners of those games will meet in a winner-take-all final game on Monday.  Although Thursday’s Japan-Korea game mattered little except in how it determined who played whom in the next round, Japan’s win evened the scales in the nations’ fervent rivalry. They have played each other twice in each round of this tournament, splitting each pair. Korea beat Japan en route to winning the gold medal at last summer’s Beijing games, but two years before, Japan beat Korea in the semifinals of the inaugural W.B.C. and went on to win it.  But significant this game was not. Japan manager Tatsunori Hara admitted afterward that, “Psychologically I was, as well as all of the players, it was like a flat condition.” And as if to give Japan as little satisfaction in victory as possible, Korea manager In-Sik Kim commented, “Today, we didn’t put great meaning to winning or losing.”  Japan broke open a tight 2-2 game with three runs in the top of the eighth inning. Pinch-hitter Michihiro Ogasawara, to that point rested from his job as starting first baseman, singled home Norichika Aoki with none out to break the tie.  Akinori Iwamura later singled through a drawn-in infield to score one run; as center fielder Taek-Keun Lee misplayed the ball, Ogasawara sped home to make the score 5-2.  It was the third error for Korea, whose defense is normally a strength.  Score and pride aside, the game was costly for both teams. Korea left fielder Yong Kyu Lee was hit in the back of his head by a pitch in the third inning, fell to the ground writhing in pain before walking off the field and might not return this weekend. A half-inning later, Japan first baseman Shuichi Murata pulled his right hamstring while rounding first base and had to be helped off the field; he will be replaced on the roster, probably by Kenta Kurihara of the Japan Central League’s Hiroshima Toyo Carp.  Venezuela will enter the semifinals as the hottest team in the W.B.C., having won five straight games by a combined score of 30-11. Venezuela is expected to start Carlos Silva on Saturday against Korea’s Suk-Min Yoon. Yoon pitched six shutout innings in a start over Chinese Taipei in the first round before working 3 2/3 more scoreless innings of relief in San Diego.  Korea’s players, of whom only two have major league experience, have barely ever seen any Venezuelan player live. But Korea’s manager suggested that the problem might be more Venezuela’s. After all, Korea’s professional baseball league is not exactly nightly television fare.  “We didn’t meet them directly, but we saw them through the TV different times,” Kim said. “Starting from April to October, every day we watch the major league teams playing. We have seen them many times.”  Sunday’s game will probably present a matchup of Major League Baseball aces: Japan’s Daisuke Matsuzaka against the United States’ Jake Peavy.  That is, unless Hara instead goes with the young phenom Yu Darvish because major league hitters have never faced him, a possibility Hara implied playfully Thursday night.

“Is there a rule that I have to say? Is there rules of such?” Hara said with a smile. “I don’t think there is a rule of that, so I would like to refrain from mentioning the name.  You know, this is part of our game plan.”  All starters from this point forward will be limited to 100 pitches after 85 the first two rounds.  At first glance, the winner of Saturday’s game would appear to have an advantage over the Sunday winner for Monday’s final because of another pitch-limit rule. Relievers who throw between 30 and 49 pitches in a game normally can return after one day of rest, but any pitcher who throws that many on Saturday will be ineligible on Monday, so that Sunday’s winner is not disadvantaged.  The United States, which has withstood several major injuries to reach the semifinal, on Thursday replaced Chipper Jones with Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, last year’s American League rookie of the year. The second round cost Team USA two other top hitters, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis, and reliever Matt Lindstrom.

 

 

Scouts See Artwork in Asian Teams’ Workouts

 

He could see Meadowlark Lemon turning two, almost hear “Sweet Georgia Brown” whistling through Petco Park. As Japanese and South Korean infielders gobbled up grounders during infield practice Tuesday and whipped the balls among themselves in bouncy syncopation, Mark Weidemaier sensed he was watching a different sport, a different show.  “They’re the Harlem Globetrotters,” said Weidemaier, who is scouting the San Diego bracket of the World Baseball Classic for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  They’re not flashy or showy, I don’t mean that. But the footwork and timing. They’re going full bore, full speed. They go through every play that needs to be made in the game. They’ll get more ground balls than a big-leaguer takes in a week.”  Baseball scouts are known for watching games, but the best in the business focus just as much on pregame practice. Three games can pass without getting to see how a shortstop can flash into the hole, or how well a second baseman charges a slow grounder. But when top Asian teams take batting practice, a scout’s inner aesthete awakens to the beauty of the game.  Tuesday night — when South Korea beat Japan, 4-1, to advance to this weekend’s W.B.C. semifinals — presented a double shot for the two dozen scouts in attendance. All of them want to be prepared in case any player becomes available to be signed, and both teams’ hour of pregame drills had oodles to eyeball.  “Korea has a B.P. routine they use where it’s more about moving runners over and hitting to the opposite field,” said Orrin Freeman, a longtime scout for the Florida Marlins who has watched international baseball since the 1980s. “You watch a major league team in the United States take B.P., and most of the guys are just playing home run derby.”  As Japan and South Korea practiced before Tuesday’s game, Freeman watched from the loge seats behind first base. He saw a distinctly South Korean defensive drill in which any ball that goes beyond outfielder depth draws an infielder deep onto the grass to take a relatively short cutoff throw, in large part because third-base coaches tend to hold runners if cutoff men already have the ball. After South Korea left the field, Japanese infielders took fungoed grounders at almost infield-in depth, pushing their reflexes so the real game would feel easier, not unlike how a hitter might swing three bats in the on-deck circle.  Rob Ducey, a former major league outfielder who scouts for the Toronto Blue Jays, sat beside the third-base dugout and enjoyed a sonata of skills rarely seen in the majors. He saw Japanese shortstop Yasuyuki Kataoka field grounders in perfect position to turn double plays, and other infielders moving to balls on angles that would make Euclid proud. South Korean third baseman Bum Ho Lee charged grounders with the intensity of October, which for many foreign players this W.B.C. might as well be.  “They work their craft a whole lot more than we do,” Ducey said. “They work on their swings instead of being pull, pull, pull.” Asked how a typical major leaguer might respond to pregame practices as intense as those of Asian teams, Ducey said: “They’d feel like it was overkill — ‘I don’t want to get gassed.’ Major league players, not all of them, but they do enough to get by because physically they’re such gifted athletes.”  Several scouts said that Japan’s infield drills are more taut than South Korea’s, a difference they ascribed to South Korea’s having larger players with more power and less reliance on fundamentals.  The cleanup hitter Tae Kyun Kim packs 220 pounds on his 6-foot frame, while first baseman Dae Ho Lee stands 6-4, 264. Japan has only one regular who weighs as much as 205: catcher Kenji Johjima, of the Seattle Mariners.  “The Japanese, they are far superior fundamentally,” said Ducey, the Blue Jays’ coordinator of Pacific Rim operations. “They take thousands of ground balls a week, not just the young guys, all of them. The Japanese run hard down the line all the time. Koreans, it’s a little haphazard at times. And Koreans are generally more physical, more aggressive at the plate. They’re more suited for our game.”  And a few hours later, the South Koreans proved that they were plenty fundamental. They beat Japan on execution alone, all in the first inning.  It started with the first two batters: second baseman Keun Woo Jeong grabbed a high chopper and threw to first to nip Japan’s Ichiro Suzuki. On the next play, first baseman Tae Kyun Kim dived to his right for a ground ball and threw to the pitcher hustling to first. Rather than a first-and-second, no-out jam, the inning ended peacefully.  In the bottom half of the inning, Japan looked uncharacteristically clumsy. After a leadoff single, second baseman Akinori Iwamura double-clutched a grounder for what was ruled a single; later, with Iwamura trying to start a double play, Kataoka could not handle Iwamura’s low throw. Two batters later, Korea’s Jin Young Lee stroked an opposite-field single through the left side for two runs, a 3-0 lead and San Diego’s best imitation of Tony Gwynn in years.

 

Outfielder Norichika Aoki of Japan during a batting practice session.

 

Jeter, Face of the U.S. Team, Looks His Age at the Classic

 

Several marquee players bypassed the tournament for reasons big and small, but Derek Jeter participated in his second straight Classic.

 

 Derek Jeter was the face and, very often, the voice of the United States team in the World Baseball Classic. When the event was promoted in December during the winter meetings in Las Vegas, Jeter was the only player there. Tournament organizers figured Jeter’s star power was enough advertising.  Several marquee players bypassed the tournament for reasons big and small, but Jeter participated in his second straight Classic.  He understood that he is one of the most popular American players, and believed that it was crucial for him to represent the red, white and blue.  But along a bumpy road, which ended Sunday night when Japan thumped the United States, 9-4, Jeter was not an impact player. These were only eight games in March, games that Yankees fans will forget the first time he scorches a run-scoring double to right field, slides into second base and claps his hands once. Still, as he worked to have a major role on the world stage, he was an extra.  Jeter, the team’s captain, hit .276 with no homers, no runs batted in and no stolen bases. The Jeter who has always been a productive postseason player, the one who has rescued the Yankees so often, was not able to save the United States this month.  “You hope to win,” Jeter said. “That’s what you do every time out. But it’s not an easy thing to do.”  Davey Johnson, the United States manager, rotated Jeter and Jimmy Rollins, a better defensive player, at shortstop. The Americans promised Jeter he would be the starter, so they could not slot him as a designated hitter.  There have been numerous statistical measurements of Jeter’s defense that have concluded he is one of the worst fielding shortstops in the major leagues. He is still solid at handling slow rollers hit in front of him, and is adept at roaming into the outfield to corral pop-ups. But his range, especially to his left, has declined. There are far too many grounders hit up the middle that roll into center field, not into his glove.  The rotation with Jeter and Rollins accentuated how much quicker and more reliable Rollins is. Jeter, 34, who is older than Rollins, 30, and looked it in the tournament, has bristled when asked about his defensive shortcomings.  “They think they have a mathematical equation that figures everything out,” Jeter has said. “Like every single person is out there with the same runner and the same pitcher, and the ball is hit in the same exact place. It seems like once somebody says one thing about you, people tend to run with it and we never hear the end of it.”  Since Jeter’s 10-year, $189 million deal with the Yankees expires after the 2010 season, the chatter about his defense will become noisier. He is an iconic player, and will probably be close to 3,000 hits entering 2010. Both sides would prefer to maintain a relationship that began when Jeter was drafted in 1992.  But Jeter is adamant about playing shortstop, and the Yankees would be relieved if he volunteered to shift to the outfield. Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers switched from short to center field and is in the Hall of Fame.  The Yankees should know that only one team since 1956 has won a pennant with a shortstop who was 34 or older. That happened with Larry Bowa, who was nearly 35, and the 1980 Phillies.  The Yankees do not have an obvious successor to Jeter in the minor leagues. If the Mets exercise their option with José Reyes and the Cleveland Indians do the same with Jhonny Peralta, the most attractive free-agent shortstop in 2011 could be J. J. Hardy of the Brewers.  General Manager Brian Cashman, who has often mentioned the Yankees’ poor defense, would not discuss Jeter’s future or whether he expected Jeter to stay at short.  “That’s two years away,” Cashman said. “That’s not something we’re even thinking about. Hopefully, Derek will be with us for a long time.”  The next Classic is in 2013 and will probably not include Jeter, but he has a much more pivotal year approaching. That is 2011. That is the year when Jeter, the forever Yankee, may not be playing shortstop anymore.