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You can only imagine the joy and jubilation if enthusiastic, flag-waving spectators filled the Yokohama baseball stadium rather than empty seats. Instead of chanting, we heard the echo of the ball foul buzzer.
Baseball is like a national religion in Japan, where the annual high school tournament known as Koshien can attract over 50% of viewers and star players gain instant fame. While the Olympic baseball tournament is mostly an afterthought in the United States, where the focus is on gymnasts, swimmers and athletic stars, Japanese fans expected the country to origin wins the gold medal. There would be no celebration for the money.
The home team delivered. In the face of this enormous pressure, a team of Japanese stars – the Central and Pacific leagues suspended their schedules to allow the best players to play – beat a motley roster of lifers and minor leagues 2-0. in the gold medal. match to win his first Olympic gold medal. Five Japanese pitchers gave a master class in pitching, limiting the American team to six hits. The US had only one extra base hit and only one runner reached third base.
The biggest hero of the day for Japan was 23-year-old starter Masato Morishita, a rising carp star from Hiroshima. 2020 Central League Rookie of the Year Morishita closed the American roster with five scoreless innings, keeping them off balance with a big old-fashioned slow curveball, a moving fastball that rushed through on right-handed hitters, and a hesitation in his childbirth, where he stopped with his front knee frozen in midair. Pressure? Morishita wore a golden glove.
I suspect that the color of the gloves will suddenly become very popular with children across Japan.
Indeed, it was a great day for the youngest stars of Japan.
American starter Nick Martinez, who has pitched in Japan since 2018 after spending four years with the Texas Rangers, locked himself with Morishita in a big pitching duel. He escaped a jam with a single out and bases loaded in the fourth inning with home strength and a three-pitched strikeout, screaming and pumping his fist after the puff. He pulled the side out in the fifth.
However, he left after six innings, trailing 1-0, as 21-year-old Munetaka Murakami hit an opposing home run in the third inning just coming through the fence in the center-left. Despite his youth, Murakami is already in his fourth season with the Yakult Swallows. He hit 36 home runs in 2019, .307 with 28 home runs in 2020, and already has 26 in 83 games this season. It was calm in the stadium, but a roar certainly echoed through Japan as he rounded the bases. He is a player the American Boy Scouts will be watching closely.
After Morishita left, Japan emptied their bullpen. The second reliever was Hiromi Itoh, a 23-year-old rookie for the Nippon Ham Fighters, who started in the regular season but secures the seventh inning of the game. On a damp evening in Yokohama, he applied a generous dose of rosin to his fingers and with each throw a puff of dust flew off the ball.
Itoh had one of the biggest strikeouts of the game. With A’s prospect Nick Allen third with two strikeouts, Itoh faced first forward Eddy Alvarez. Alvarez, 31, who carried the American flag during the opening ceremonies with basketball star Sue Bird, won a silver medal at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, as part of the American team speed skating relay. When the United States beat South Korea to reach the gold medal match – securing a medal for Alvarez – he burst into tears, thrilled to become the sixth athlete to win medals at the Winter Olympics and summer. Alvarez bounced back first to end the threat.
Indeed, compared to the Star-studded Japanese roster or American men’s and women’s basketball teams, the US Olympic baseball roster was mostly made up of players like Alvarez, the Bad News Bears minus Kelly Leak and Amanda Wurlitzer.
Oh, the US team had their own All-Stars – former All-Stars, like Todd Frazier, the 35-year-old veteran who was released earlier this season after reaching 0.086 for the Pirates. Or Scott Kazmir, the 37-year-old southpaw who made his first All-Star game in 2006. After not playing in major tournaments since 2016, Kazmir returned to the major leagues this year, starting two games for the Giants. . Edwin Jackson is the last lifer. He played for 14 teams during his major league career, including a few more than once. He last pitched in majors in 2019. It’s not easy to give up the sport you’ve been playing your whole life.
The tension is increased at the end of the round. Following Tyler Austin’s first single in the eighth, Japan brought in left-handed reliever Suguru Iwazaki to face Red Sox prospect Triston Casas. Casas and Allen were the two legitimate potential players on the team and he had been the team’s best hitter in the tournament. Iwazaki threw him a 3-2 slider, probably off the plate, and Casas tried to check his swing, but couldn’t. Frazier appears, screaming in frustration. It may have been his last game at bat as a professional baseball player. Eric Filia failed.
Japan added a point late in the eighth and then turned to another rookie, Ryoji Kuribayashi, to conclude. Kuribayashi has a 0.53 ERA for Hiroshima Carp, with 18 saves and 54 strikeouts in 33⅔ innings. Like many Japanese pitchers who have come to the US majors, he has a bad split-finger pitch. He got one strikeout and a ball before Allen hit with two strikeouts.
It was Jack Lopez, the No. 9 hitter of the American formation. He’s been in the minor leagues since 2012, playing for the Royals, the Braves and now the Red Sox. Born in Puerto Rico, he played winter ball for seven seasons there. He played for Idaho Falls and Wilmington and Northwest Arkansas and Omaha and Gwinnett and Worcester. He saw America. He’s never played a major league game.
Kuribayashi was too good. Lopez failed on the shortstop, the Japanese players rushed over the mound, and the coaching staff hugged each other, history secured. As Eduardo Perez said on the show, this was the gold medal that Japan wanted above all else.
Then the Japanese team lined up along the third base line, turned to the American dugout and bowed.
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