Japan cruises to victory in Premier 12 opener

In the opening game, Korea could keep pace with Japan for one and a half innings. But after the Samurai Japan took a 2-0 they never looked back. Without flexing their muscles, the Japanese cruised to a 5-0 victory.

Despite loading the bases a few times, the Koreans could not cash in.

Samurai Japan starting pitcher Shohei Otani of the Nippon Ham Fighters, was practical unhittable in front of his home crowd in Sapporo. For 31,000 specators, the ace of the Fighters kept the Koreans hitless for three innings and eventually gave up only two hits in six innings of work for the win. Otani fanned ten and issued two walks.

Samurai Japan took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning when Sho Nakata scored from second base on a basehit by Ryosuke Hirata, that luckily for Japan hit third base and bounced away from the Korean third baseman Kyoung-Min Hur for a double. In the same inning he Japanese scored one more run to take a 2-0 lead.
In the bottom of the fifth, Sho Nakata scored from second base on another basehit by Ryosuke Hirata. A solo homerun by shortstop Hayato Sakamoto put the Samurai Japan team in the driver seat. Sakamoto scored once more in the bottom of the eighth inning when he came all the way from first base on a double hit by Tetsuto Yamada for the 5-0 lead.

The Koreans loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth with no outs, but Yuki Matsui retired the next three batters for Japan’s first win of the tournament.

Korea was outhit 12-4. Softbank Hawks star Dae-Ho Lee collected one hit out of four at bats for Korea. The only Korean with a multiple hit game was Byung-Ho Park who went 2 for 4 with a single and a double.

Kwang-Hyun Kim took the loss for Korea. In just 2.2 innings he gave up two runs on five hits, walked two and fanned three.

Nobuhiro Matsuda had the perfect score at bat for Japan. He went 2 for 2, drew two walks and scored once.

Perhaps it was also because of the boring comment of the play-by-play announcer, but the game never really was exciting as the Koreans never were a real threat for the Japanese pitching and defense.

Tomorrow team Kingdom of the Netherlands will take on Taiwan in the second game of the tournament.